


After Me, the Flood

by efka



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Coming of Age, Family Issues, Gen, Mental Health Issues, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-07 21:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1914255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/efka/pseuds/efka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With his mother's mental health deteriorating and his father growing increasingly distant, Artemis crosses the final hurdles into adulthood. Artemis's understanding of responsibility and family are further strained when he develops feelings for his bodyguard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fowl Manor

**Author's Note:**

> Since Artemis's feelings for Butler are one-sided and their relationship remains platonic I have categorised this as genfic.
> 
> Set after The Time Paradox and diverges from canon there.

Fowl Manor brooded over the dawn like a stone dreadnought anchored in rippling mists, surrounded on all sides by dew-soaked slopes and the bleak emptiness of altitude. A lark warbled somewhere, but otherwise the silence gaped wide over the hilltop and down into the valley below where, around the flat silver disc of the lake, naked trees speared the shore. When dawn broke, the Manor looked much as it had almost a thousand years ago: a soundless headstone cresting the grass, the mute liege lord of the churning Irish mists.

Clustered some distance from the manor proper was a collection of sheds and small buildings, some of squat, practical concrete build that dated from the sixties, and some of more recent construction. The most newly built of these were the stables, an addition made to the Fowl estate only three years previously. It housed three Arabian geldings: one chestnut, one black, and one grey, and each of splendid build and somewhat less splendid character. On this morning, like most mornings of late, the stables housed a fourth individual, though one who would rather be beginning his day with a five mile run than tending to three temperamental horses.

While the addition of the Fowl stables and current lack of a stable-hand had initially presented to Domovoi Butler only another list of thankless tasks to accomplish, he had found himself warming to the animals; excepting, however, the grey who had the nasty habit of biting at whomever tried to brush him (which was invariably Butler), and so Butler had taken a grudging dislike to the creature. The black horse, Strider, was more placid and would contentedly inhale apple chunks from Butler's massive palm, but it was only the chestnut, Rembrandt, for whom Butler had developed a particular affection. Whether this was because the horse was Master Artemis's preferred mount or because it had clearly warmed to the man who fed and watered it Butler did not know, but he had formed an undeniable bond with the creature.

This morning, like most mornings, he let himself into Rembrandt's stable and ran a hand over the animal's neck.

'Good morning, old boy. Do you know what day it is today?' The horse, as ever, did not respond, but Butler did not take offence. The horses were much easier to talk to than people. 'It's my birthday. Did you get me anything?' Rembrandt blinked and Butler let it nuzzle his hand, the velvet nose searching fruitlessly for sugar lumps. 'Don't worry, you're not the only one.'

His birthday had always been an uncelebrated affair in the Fowl household. Juliet was notorious for forgetting, though she would try to make up for it with a card and slice of lopsided cake a week late. But she had been absent at various wrestling events the past three years running and so Butler had grown content to let his birthday pass with little regard, although he occasionally bought for himself a new novel or fresh addition to his collection of Heckler & Koch pistols. Sometimes he forgot the date entirely and so took little affront when Artemis consistently displayed the same indifference. Birthdays were simply a barometer of looming mortality, one to which Butler paid little attention as someone who got shot in the chest for a living. As long as he was fit and able, his job was guarding Artemis; and, of late, caring for Artemis's horses.

Butler set to work on Rembrandt's mane, combing it out, rubbing the animal's nose with a hand that almost spanned the length of its head.

'Forty-eight. I never expected to live this long.' Rembrandt snorted loudly and Butler nodded in agreement. 'I know. Maybe it'll be time to retire soon. On the other hand, what with all the fairy magic, I'm not sure I actually know how old I am physically.' He dropped his voice conspiratorially. 'And between you and me, retirement might not be something I ever get round to. I'm not sure Artemis will notice when I turn sixty-five. He's not very good at keeping track.'

'You wound me, old friend.'

Butler turned sharply, his soldier's instincts raring and then gently falling as the rest of his brain caught up. Artemis had clearly been waiting in the stables for some time, judging by his pale lips and the red flush dusting his nose and cheeks. Though wrapped in a heavy winter coat and his head enclosed in a fluffy ushanka, he was visibly shivering. He still looked very much a boy, a miniature in comparison to his bodyguard even in his heeled riding boots. They gave an infinitesimal height boost to a stature that, even at seventeen, did not clear five foot seven.

'No offence, Artemis, but you did once forget your own mother's birthday.'

'I was preoccupied with some vital research,' Artemis said, offended. 'I can't be expected to capitulate to every arbitrary celebration my family commemorates.'

Butler wanted to chide, but his feelings were the same. Juliet's birthday was the only one he celebrated. Artemis only cared about his birthday insofar as he could use it as an excuse to wrangle additional funds for his environmental science experiments out of his parents. And even then, said wrangling was only to be polite. Artemis had hacked his father's bank accounts seventeen times.

'So,' said Butler, 'what are you doing out here at four-thirty in the morning?'

Artemis's lips slurred into a grin. 'Come out back.'

Butler raised his eyebrows but followed Artemis's bundled figure without comment, out the back of the stable and around to a small yard where several sheds stored spare tools and machine parts. Butler stopped short when they rounded the corner and Artemis came to a halt a few paces further, turning on his heels and smiling.

'Happy birthday.'

The beast that stood tethered in the centre of the yard was of such enormity that Butler, for the first time in his life, felt dwarfed. A magnificent Belgian mare, she breached seventeen hands at the very least, her withers almost at the height of Butler's crown and her head towering even higher. The muscles beneath her chestnut coat shifted tectonically and her hooves left trenches in the mud where they pawed. She was of such colossal proportions that she more resembled the wooden horse of Troy than the Fowl Arabians. She regarded them both with huge, deep eyes and snorted with a sound like a dampened rifle.

'You kept complaining that my early morning rides were a recipe for potential assassination,' said Artemis, 'and so I thought it might be prudent to procure for you your own mount. It was difficult to find a horse to fit your proportions, but Dido here should be up to the task.'

'She is beautiful,' Butler managed, stepping forwards to touch the animal's neck. Dido's ears twitched, but she didn't spook.

'Don't get sentimental. I bought her out of necessity.' His voice dropped. 'Also to make up for the past seventeen birthdays I've missed. And hopefully the coming seventeen as well, because I am in all likelihood never going to remember your birthday again.'

Butler didn't reply. While he was well aware horses most always fell short of the level of intelligence attributed to them by their riders, there was nonetheless a kind of knowing relentlessness in Dido's stare.

'She's eighteen point two hands, two thousand two hundred pounds, and cost more than I would customarily spend on a horse, but I could hardly get you an Arabian; you'd crush the poor thing.' Worry twitched his brow. 'You can ride, I assume?'

'Of course. Madam Ko taught riding in the first few months at the academy. Never know when a horse is going to be your only mode of transport.'

'Well then, I would like stop standing around in this abominable cold as soon as possible. Saddle her up.'

'You did remember to buy a saddle that'll fit her?'

Artemis's withering expression would have crumpled a lesser man, or one who had not been subjected to it daily for seventeen years. 'And a helmet for you. Come on, I've been waiting here for half an hour and I want to ride.'

* * *

They took Artemis's usual route, down the slope surrounding the manor and into the mist-thick valley. Artemis rode ahead, cutting an elegant though slight figure in his black velvet helmet and mint grey jodhpurs. Butler had not been horse-riding in a long time, but he had forgotten very little Madam Ko had ever taught him and was soon at ease, shifting rhythmically with the horse as he watched his charge. It was an unusual experience to be carried in such a manner, having spent so much of his life carrying Artemis, Holly, Juliet, and the twins around in various circumstances. Dido carried him as capably as Rembrandt did Artemis and took steps that echoed like shots when her steel-shod hoofs hit the path. From a distance the casual observer might mistake the fog-smudged silhouettes of the two riders for a huge stag and its fawn wandering the wet Irish dawn.

Artemis usually enjoyed the solitary soundlessness of his rides, but he was not-so-secretly pleased with his ability to obtain such a rare creature and wanted to indulge his success. Butler, who was well-accustomed to indulging Artemis, answered his charge's many questions without complaint.

'She has no difficulty carrying you?'

'None at all. I'm not _that_ heavy, Artemis.'

'Too heavy for most horses to carry without ruining their backs. How is her temperament?'

'Seems good so far. I couldn't get near your mother's horse for a week when he first arrived, remember? The thing was terrified of me.'

'I remember. And Dido has no such complaints?'

'Nope. She's probably reassured to meet another living creature on her scale.'

Artemis turned in his saddle, a smile in his eyes. 'Projecting, are we?'

It was true, there was something comforting about riding an animal of the same vast scale as yourself. Butler went through life constrained by miniature chairs, cars that gave him neck pains, meals he could swallow in several bites. He felt an immense sense of peace astride an animal that was the 'right' size. He suppressed a smile at the thought that the same was true for Artemis. Rembrandt was small even for an Arabian and fit Artemis very comfortably. Although not a tiny young man, Artemis had his mother's slim frame but none of her willowy height. It didn't seem to bother the boy. He had spent his whole life being underestimated; what could a couple of missing vertical inches matter?

'I would prefer to take my rides alone,' said Artemis, 'but you are, as usual, quite right that I am putting myself in unnecessary danger with a daily routine of solitary exercise.'

Butler snorted. 'Exercise. If you say so.'

'When you're bow-legged with saddle sores, _then_ you can be superior with me about horse-riding as exercise, but not before.'

'Artemis Fowl, giving his Butler a lecture about the physical pains of exercise. I never thought I'd see the day.' Butler shook his head at the slim black-and-grey figure in front. 'Madam Ko once had us ride for three days bareback in a monsoon carrying a bag of rocks on our shoulders. We would have given our little fingers for the comfort of saddle sores.'

Artemis didn't reply, but Butler saw his shoulders twitch slightly with the kind of snide exhalation that, for Artemis, generally passed for laughter. Conversation was light-hearted, which is one of the great effects that enjoyable exercise, even horse-riding, could have in a freezing Irish morning. Butler had often thought a little invigorating exercise might be good for his charge, but horse-riding was the only activity Artemis had ever taken to. Although Butler had found himself frustrated again and again with Artemis's staunch commitment to horse-riding in the face of all other forms of exercise, it was clear to him why this of all physical activities had appealed. On horseback, Artemis commanded a certain slender physical elegance. He flicked the reins and twitched his boots in the stirrups with the same attitude as when he sat at piano, hands on the keys, feet on the pedals: arranged in self-flattering poise. If any sport appealed to Artemis's aesthetic sensibilities then it was horse-riding. Butler wouldn't be entirely surprised if Artemis had got the idea from spending too long staring at that ugly Picasso print he seemed to like so much.

'Horses have an intrinsic beauty that dumbbells do not,' Artemis had once argued, and Butler had found it difficult to pose a counter argument. Although he would never admit it, Artemis was a shameless aesthete and rarely willingly participated in any activity that didn't lend him some air of elegance. There was a reason Artemis never wore anything - outside of life-threatening situations - that couldn't be mistaken for something from a Tom Ford collection, and it wasn't practicality. Simply convincing Artemis to put on gym shorts and a T-shirt could take Butler an hour. And on horseback, it was difficult not to admit that Artemis had found a physical activity that catered to his particular aesthetic tastes. Still, Butler wished Artemis would take up _one_ form of cardio.

By the time they arrived back at the stables Artemis was in good spirits. The cold pink flush his cheeks had born that morning had been replaced with a more even, warm glow and he resembled most uncannily a well worn-out teenage boy. Butler dismounted first, patting Dido appreciatively on her massive neck. Artemis turned in the saddle and half-lowered himself into the stirrup, then allowed Butler to grip his waist and lower him to the ground. Artemis had discovered quite early in his riding lessons that his limited agility did not allow him to make an elegant, or even necessarily vertical, dismount.

Artemis unbuckled his helmet and lifted it, freeing the black flare of his hair.

'You need a haircut,' Butler observed, removing his own.

'You too. The greys are getting noticeable.'

Butler ran a hand over his bristled scalp, having foregone shaving once again in order to tend to the horses.

'Ever think of hiring a stable-hand so I don't need to do all the work around here?'

'If you dislike the horses so much, why are you always talking to them?'

'Well, they don't constantly rib me, unlike some people.'

'I don't _constantly_ rib you,' said Artemis as they exited the stables. 'But you are getting extremely easy to tease. I mean, really, Butler, they're horses not débutantes. If you're that lonely call Juliet.'

'I don't talk to them out of loneliness. They're just good sounding boards.'

'You never did strike me as the type to be bothered by solitary living.' A frown stretched between Artemis's pale temples. 'What you said about retirement... It is an option. There are other Butlers and you have given this family nearly twenty years of service. You were completely correct earlier. Forty-eight is old for a soldier and if your age is compromising your skills or your reaction times, then-'

Butler snatched a fat midge from the air and presented the red smear to his employer.

'My reaction times are fine.'

'Yes, thank you for saving me from the risk of a mild itch. Whatever would I do without you?'

'Probably burn yourself on the toaster, then fall off your horse, and die starving in a ditch somewhere.'

'I can work a toaster,' Artemis said, which was a complete lie.

They crossed the threshold into Fowl Manor and Butler shut fast the gaping oak door, then typed in the security code to prevent the alarm system from doing what Juliet described as 'losing its shit.' The house was dark, huge, and still, heavy with early morning sleep. Emptied of the twins' shrieking or social functions, the manor's usually dour attitude metamorphosed into something more grim, a giant walk-in coffin. Artemis's pale face hung in the gloom, its pink warmth gone, a soft frown still weighting his features.

Butler paused beside him. 'Do you want me to leave, Artemis?'

'Of course not.'

'Then why bring it up?'

'I thought you might be unhappy here.'

'I'm not.' Butler's tone was abrupt. 'Why are you asking me this now? I've been with you seventeen years.'

A small shrug rippled through Artemis's shoulder. 'I'm nearly eighteen. A biological adult, although legally I'm almost twenty-one. If you wanted an excuse to leave the Fowls' service, now would be the time.'

'That's good to know, but I have no intention of leaving either the Fowl family or you in particular. Is that a problem?'

'No,' Artemis said. He looked about to say something else, his lips parting once then sealing shut, smothering the thought. A thin smile stretched his mouth. 'Do you really want to put up with me for another seventeen years?'

'Can't imagine any place I'd rather be.'

Something passed over Artemis's expression: a sweep of premature dusk. But then it passed, and he was Artemis again.

'In that case, I'll take breakfast in the study.'

'What do you want?' Butler made a mental guess: _eggs benedict, cappuccino._ He had successfully guessed Artemis's breakfasts now fifty-six days running, though he had not shared this streak with Artemis.

Artemis tapped his chin. 'Eggs benedict.'

'To drink?'

'A cappuccino. But add less milk than you have been doing lately. You turn them into frothy lattes.'

'If you want less milk in your coffee then stop not finishing your meals. Sometimes the only calories you get in a day come from milk.'

'My bodyguard. Defending me against midges and calcium deficiencies.'

'Those and trolls are my specialities.'

They parted in the hall and Artemis went to dress, spending what even the most fashion-forward teenagers would consider an inordinate amount of time selecting his outfit. Since he would be eating dinner with his mother he decided to keep it casual for her sake ('No suits at the dinner table except on special occasions, Arty. You look like an undertaker.') and so donned tan chinos, brown suede derbies, a cornflower blue shirt and forest-green sweatervest. He was almost successfully out of the door when he hurried back to his wardrobe to tear off the sweatervest and knot (in half-windsor) a coffee-coloured knit tie around his neck before pulling the sweatervest on again. His mother might mock his proclivities, but somebody in the house needed to know the difference between hopsack and fresco, for goodness' sake. 

* * *

 

After a day of pleasant private research in his study, a bell sounded in the belly of the house to announce dinner.

The meal was a quiet affair, attended as it was by only Artemis and his mother. Angeline Fowl had been recently complaining that the twins' tendency for turning family dinners into food fights was fatiguing her, and so Artemis Sr had offered to take the boys on a brief holiday to London where they could get measured for their first suits. Myles had already sketched out a design for a modest three piece navy worsted; Beckett had brought a photo of Christopher Lee's _Dracula_. Regardless of what the twins brought back with them, the trip allowed Angeline a few days of quiet in the house and Artemis the opportunity to get some work done without Myles bothering his research with claims that a neoliberal economy would never accommodate eco-friendly alternatives that compromised even slightly capitalism's relentless onward march to a blasted earth. Artemis cursed had himself for ever lending Myles a copy of Naomi Klein in the first place.

After dinner, Artemis and Angeline both took coffee (Angeline still forbade her son alcohol, which quite inconvenienced Artemis's wine collecting) and the conversation turned once again to the topic of Artemis's higher education.

'There are wonderful courses at both Oxford and Cambridge, Arty,' she said, 'so if you decide to go to either just choose whichever you prefer. But there's no need to restrict yourself to Oxbridge, of course. St Andrews is somewhere you said you quite liked, and the social experience there is, I hear, quite wonderful-'

'Mother.' Artemis stirred his cappuccino listlessly, one hand propping up his head from boredom.

'Look, Arty, if you want a more exciting location we can look at city universities like UCL or even Trinity College if you'd like to stay closer to home. If you don't, the University of Tokyo is-'

'Mother, I am not going to university. I have been very clear about this.'

Angeline Fowl's brow tightened with deep distress. She had not risen from bed until dinner. A translucent white gown cobwebbed her slender frame and silk chemise, her hair a tumble of loose curls, an espresso poised daintily between lip and plate.

'Arty, dear, it would be so good for you.'

'I received my doctorate last year. What could another bachelors possibly offer me?'

'You could study something new. What about literature? You always said you never get to spend as much time reading as you'd like.'

'I could teach myself with far more efficiency than any of those insipid professors.'

Angeline brought her cup down onto her plate with rather more force than was necessary.

'Artemis. Some of these men and women are the top authorities in their fields. Even you would have something to learn from them.'

'True,' conceded Artemis, taking a sip of his drink (too milky, again). 'But not enough to waste three years of my life.'

'You could do a fast track course.'

'I am not doing it, mother. It is a waste of time.'

'And what about your social development?'

Artemis lay the cup down and leaned back in his chair, resting his wrists lightly on the table.

'Am I not socially developed? I have a wide network of friends and business associates with whom I am able to converse freely and authoritatively on a great variety-'

'How many friends do you have, Arty?' He opened his mouth to speak but his mother cut him off. 'Friends you've spoken to in the past six months.'

Artemis withdrew his hands from the table. 'Holly. Butler. Do email exchanges count?'

'No.'

'Well, Holly and Butler, then. Both fine friends.'

'We _pay_ Butler.'

Artemis felt his voice wither in his throat. 'That's irrelevant,' he finally managed.

'The fact that you think a man who is paid handsomely to put up with your every self-indulgent, narcissistic idiosyncrasy constitutes a _fine friend_ speaks very well of your so-called social development, don't you think? And Holly, when was the last time you spoke to her?'

'She has been busy.'

Angeline threw her napkin onto the table. 'There you go. No friends at all. You're a sad little boy, Arty. Sad sad sad sad.' She stood violently, upsetting her cup with the gesticulations of her thin, fluttering hand. 'Sad sad sad.'

Artemis remained seated, his eyes on his drink, trying to regulate his breathing. His mother's shrill voice curled out of the room and along the corridor, rising and fading as it climbed the stairs, then disappearing sharply when she slammed her bedroom door. Artemis's ears continued to ring with her voice, like his whole body was a tuning fork that had been violently struck against the table.

'Is everything alright?'

Butler stood, aproned, in the doorway.

'Fine. Mother is just having one of her turns.'

'Again? That's the third this week.'

'I am well aware.' Artemis watched the vestiges of his mother's espresso slide thickly over the lip of the cup. 'Father comes home tomorrow. I will speak to him about it then. There is no point ruining his holiday over mother feeling a little over-tired.'

'Of course. Should I go check on her?'

'No, I'll do it. You might frighten her.'

One of the reasons they had initially invited Juliet to live in Fowl Manor was Angeline's memory problems. She had called the police twice on Butler, not recognising him and thinking him an intruder. Butler had suggested that, if Angeline had to continuously forget someone's identity, better it be a fourteen-year-old girl than a hulk who terrified her.

'Artemis, did she say something to upset you?'

Artemis was quite certain his face had been arranged in a perfect null expression, but having spent seventeen years a scholar of his charge's moods, Butler could quite easily interpret every shade of blank that Artemis was able to draw up.

'I'm fine,' he lied. 'Just another disagreement regarding my higher education.'

Butler said nothing. Just as Butler could interpret Artemis's guarded expression, Artemis could decode the varieties of silence Butler frequently offered in place of comment. He lingered for a moment in the dining room but could not quite rake enough words together to repeat his mother's accusation.

'I'll be upstairs,' he said, and left the room. The hall's floor was of dark mahogany, bisected by the sprawling tongue of a Persian rug in deep reds and blues, the same shade of red that painted the pressing, textured wallpaper. Previous Fowls stared impassively out of their portraits as Artemis passed and groped after him with blind gazes, centuries of dead lords and ladies bearing the Fowl name whose winding line had come to coalesce on him, Artemis II, the boy heir to this ancient house.

Ascending the stairs, Artemis noted almost unconsciously the _creak, creak, thud, creak_ rhythm of the stairs he had passed up so many times. It was just one more part of the irregular pulse of the house that sounded in the grandfather clock in his study, the rain on the windows, the settling of the pipes, the pawing hoof-beats of the horses. _We are a living thing, we Fowls in our warren._

At his mother's door Artemis paused, collecting himself. He had been in this position so many times before. He would open this door and his mother wouldn't recognise him, or she knew him but despised him for crimes he had not committed. For two years he had not known who lay behind that bedroom door. Russian roulette, only you had to keep going about your business even when your heart was bleeding out your chest.

Artemis knocked twice. 'Mother?'

'Come in.' Her voice was light, feathery.

Artemis pushed the door open. His mother had changed out of her nightclothes and into a periwinkle gown in layers of sheer lace, dusting the floor around her. A little formal perhaps, but otherwise the outfit of a sane woman.

'How are you feeling?'

'Oh, much better, thank you.' She smiled and the room glittered. 'How are you, dear? Did you get some dessert?'

'I despise dessert, mother. I always have.'

'You must eat, dear, you need your strength.' She turned to a full length rococo mirror to fasten on a pair of large pearl earrings. 'I do worry, you know, that... that I'm a bad mother.'

'You're a wonderful mother.' Artemis felt his throat constrict. 'The best a boy could hope for.'

'I wish I could believe that. I fear I gave little Arty such a fright.'

Artemis's careful expression faltered. 'Excuse me?'

'I saw him again, Timmy. I saw little Arty. All grown up, come back to us.'

'What?'

Regret lilted her voice. 'I know he's dead. I know it. But sometimes I feel that he's here with us, watching over me and you, and the boys. I wish he could have met them. He would have been a good brother.'

'Mam, I'm right here,' said Artemis, part of him drenched in primal terror and wanting to call out for Butler.

Angeline's eyes alighted on her son as though she had only just noticed him and she blinked, recognition settling in her irises.

'Arty? Do you need something?'

'No,' he whispered.

'If you don't mind, Arty, I'm feeling a little tired. I'd like to lie down.'

'Of course.' His voice was tiny. 'I'm sorry to have disturbed you, mother.'

Artemis let himself out and pulled the door closed. He rested his head against the grain and breathed deeply. His thoughts spun around on themselves too fast for him to catch. The past two years had seen Angeline tired and often angry, but never psychotic. Something was wrong with her.

Artemis drifted downstairs like the fragment of a leaf, the walls full of red worms, his brain throwing up a list of contextless facts and words that he had once known intimately, after his father's disappearance. _Delusional disorder, lucid periods, paranoid delusions, a sense of unreality, many live satisfying lives._ He stumbled on the bottom step and wavered to the middle of the rug, floating through nausea. She had been so well, for so long.

Or had she?

After Holly's healing she had been her old self again, yes. But Artemis had been at boarding school most of the time, so how could he be certain? And then he had disappeared to Hybras for three years. He had no idea what her mental state was like. She had been tired these past two years, true, though not unstable. But Opal had climbed inside her body and tore her insides apart. How could he know? What if there was a physical illness? A brain tumour, encephalitis, an abscess...

The questions threw themselves at the walls of Artemis's skull like drunk bluebottles. His hand reached out, the palm damp, his vision a fireworks display, a buzzing crescendo spilling out of his ears. Then a clean wave of nausea rose through him in a broiling column, quaking, cresting, then it crashed through his head and Artemis fell forwards in a dead faint.


	2. Tremors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I think there is a lot of work to be done in the field of psychology. If I did not have my criminal plots to occupy my time, I think I would devote my energies to putting right some of the mistakes made by misters Freud and Jung." - The Artemis Fowl Files. Based on this statement I have opted to make Artemis's medical specialisation in psychiatry.

While elbow-deep in the washing up for Artemis and Mrs Fowl's evening meal, Butler's mind strayed again to a thought he had been entertaining with increasing frequency these past few months. Although he was not harbouring any delusions that his role in the Fowl household was primarily other that of _servant_ , he could not in good conscience believe that Artemis looked at him purely through an employer's eyes any more, or indeed had done for a long time.

Butler was not entirely sure what role he occupied in Artemis's social hierarchy – somewhere between an elder brother and a friend, perhaps – but it was patently not the role Angeline and Artemis Sr thought he should occupy. The elder Fowls were certainly fond of their son's manservant, but he remained just that: a servant. Neither were disrespectful in their treatment of him and he was even on occasion invited to participate in family rituals: at Christmas, he would join the Fowl family for the unwrapping of presents (which included for him every year a bottle of cologne that stacked up dusty and unused in a cupboard like so many dead bluebottles), he would be included in the family photograph, and he would join them at the dinner table. But while Mrs Fowl would relax in a blouse and high waters and even Artemis might grudgingly adopt a festive green sweater and golden cufflinks, Butler would come to Christmas day dressed in his daily work uniform of charcoal suit and tie, and come the small hours of December 26th  he would be the one left alone to clean up the present wrappings and abandoned mince pies.

The elder Fowls' discomfort with Artemis's complete unwillingness to make friends with any human beings beyond an employee well over twice his age remained unsaid, but the sentiment had begun to collect like stubborn dust in the thin cracks spiderwebbing through the Fowl family bedrock. As time wore on those cracks grew more inflamed; they itched, they reddened, they gaped raw and ugly behind the veneer of polite conversation.  The young man into which Artemis had grown was no longer compatible with the house that had raised him, and neither was his bodyguard.

Butler may have taken this train of thought further, but an odd noise silenced his thoughts, like a hand on a ringing bell. It sounded like a small sack of flour being tossed onto a heap: a quiet, muffled, heavy sound. Whether it was instinct or whether Butler somehow heard in that _thud_ Artemis's exact size and weight, having spent years physically ferrying him to and from danger, Butler would not be able to say. Whatever the reason, he abandoned the stack of plates in an instant, dripping suds, and thundered into the hall.

He found there a familiar crumple of bones heaped on the floor, its face drowned under a flood of black hair. The figure did not move.

Butler was at Artemis's side in moments. With one hand he scooped the boy to his chest and turned him over, finding himself facing an empty, unconscious expression. He placed two huge fingers on Artemis's wrist and counted the beats of an impossibly tiny pulse and then fished in his pocket for his phone to call an ambulance.

Then Artemis's lashes twitched, the thin violet capillaries webbing his eyelids stark against his blanched skin. Next a frown blossomed across his brow and his dry lips parted to suck in air.

'Artemis, say something.'

The boy groaned out a guttural hum.

'Artemis?'

'Butler.' Though half-conscious, Artemis still managed to weight the name with gentle sarcasm, mocking his bodyguard's concerned tone. His eyes opened and flickered uselessly over nothing in particular.

'Do you know where you are?'

Artemis's gaze sharpened between blinks. 'On that obscene rug mother likes so much. Did I pass out?'

'Briefly.'

'How inconvenient.' His face was pallid, unwell, but its expression was set hard. 'Let me up.'

'Wait a moment. You might faint again.'

'I'm quite alright, Butler.' Irritation tinged his words. 'If you wouldn't mind?'

With great reluctance Butler eased back, one hand cupping Artemis's elbow to steady him. Artemis's vision swam briefly with the pulsing deep reds of the hall but the waves soon settled, bringing into focus those endless blank-eyed portraits. They stared at him like a gallery of skeletons. Artemis had once very much liked those portraits, that parade of history, but increasingly of late they had felt like strangers. He shared his blood with each of them, and once that had given him a sense of continuity, a certainty of place, the comfort of context. But now he saw them for what they were: a crowd of passionless aristocrats gazing endlessly down on someone they had never known and never cared about. There was no continuity here, only corpses.

'Artemis?'

His eyes flicked back to Butler's, which broiled with concern. 'I'm sorry, what?'

'I asked if you knew what made you faint.'

'It was just a dizzy spell.' Butler did not dignify the paper-thin lie with a response. Artemis shook his head minutely. 'I'll explain in a moment. I need to lie down.'

He allowed Butler to guide him back up the stairs, one hand on his elbow, the other poised to catch him if he fell backwards. Once they reached his bedroom Artemis sent Butler to fetch him a glass of water while he changed into powder-blue pyjamas and a robe. His breathing came easier now that his neck was free of its collar and tie. He considered going straight to his study to begin research, but upon standing the dizziness immediately threaded its way back into his vision, so he opted instead to sit on the edge of his bed until stability returned.

Butler returned with the glass of water. He sat firmly in the chair by Artemis's bedside and fixed his charge with a hard stare.

'Stop looking at me like that,' Artemis muttered into his glass.

'Don't lie to me, Artemis. I always can tell, and it never helps.'

Artemis skipped his fingernails along the glass in parallel rhythms and let the low clinking sound fill his ears and drown out the questions that were still roaring inside his skull. Butler watched him patiently, though his patience was edged with something sharper: an oak tree with metal leaves.

Finally, Artemis spoke. 'Mother isn't well.'

'I see.'

'I know she's been experiencing periods of instability lately, but...' Artemis clenched his teeth in anger at the tears threatening to form and the hairline fracture poised to shatter his voice. 'When I spoke with her she didn't recognise me. She thought I was my father, as she was prone to do in her previous illness.' He decided to omit his mother's belief that he was dead. 'I don't understand. Most illnesses that exhibit these symptoms are permanent or degenerative conditions: Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, or some other delusional disorder. They don't flare up occasionally with years of healthy lapses in between.'

'I couldn't tell you. I'm not a doctor.'

'But I am,' Artemis said. 'Isn't that the common perversity of psychiatrists? We all prove utterly incapable of looking after our own family members.'

'You're too hard on yourself. And you're still not licensed, so stop calling yourself a psychiatrist.'

Artemis twitched his fingers dismissively. 'A technicality.'

Butler sighed, not without exasperation, and leaned forwards.

'Do you want me to call your father?'

'No,' Artemis said a little too quickly. 'I'll tell him tomorrow on his return. There's no point in spoiling his holiday or upsetting Myles and Beckett.'

'Of course. Do we call a doctor now or wait until your father gets back?'

'We wait. It's a sensitive issue.' Artemis gave Butler a guilty look. 'I never told him about mother's illness during his abduction.'

'I know. You had good reasons not to.'

'I always have good reasons. I always employ the best of reasons in making the worst of decisions. Even when I try to help people I end up causing harm.'

'Your mother would be a in much worse state if it wasn't for you, and your father wouldn't even be here. Being maudlin isn't going to help your mother.'

Artemis was about to offer a scathing comeback, but Butler's expression was unyielding. 'You're right, of course. Self-pity will not speed my mother to good health, though some pertinent research might.'

He stood up. Dizziness fluttered at the edges of his vision like powdered black moth wings. Artemis ignored it along with the viscous nausea climbing the walls of his stomach. He could take a couple of anti-emetics and he would be fine, as long as he didn't go running about the manor. The last thing his family needed right now was for him to fall apart.

'You don't look well,' said Butler.

Artemis tightened the cord of his robe. 'I fail to see how that has any relevance to the current situation.'

'You won't help matters by over-stressing yourself.'

'I also won't help matters by lying around in bed like an invalid.' He slid his feet into slippers of midnight velvet. 'I'll spend a few hours in the study with my mother's old medical records.'

'Artemis.' Butler stood, towering over his charge, then bent to place his hands on either of the boy's thin shoulders. 'You can't cure your mother in a night of research.'

'What would you have me do? Shut her in the attic like we did last time and hope her illness resolves itself of its own accord?'

'I want you to put your own health first. Your mother wouldn't want you to compromise your well-being on her account.'

'How is she supposed to care about my well-being if she can't remember who I am?' he snapped, but he didn't shrug off Butler's grip. There was something deeply reassuring for someone to hold you and speak your name and meet your eyes. His mother had looked at him exactly the same way that she had six years ago when on a warm summer evening she had, for the first time, not known who he was. It was like he didn't exist. But Butler's grip on his shoulders was solid and real, and told him he was still there. It made him feel less like a ghost.

'Artemis, your mother loves you.' Butler's voice was like warm earth holding him up. 'She always has. Nothing can take that away from you.'

'What happens when she stops remembering that she loves me? What happens when she doesn't know who I am any more?'

'You have no reason to believe that has any chance of happening.' He lowered his head to ensure Artemis was meeting his eyes. 'And if it does, we'll work through it. You're not alone in this like you were last time. Your have your father, your brothers, Holly...'

'I wasn't alone last time either.'

'Well, obviously I'll be with you, that goes without saying.' He gave Artemis's shoulders a little squeeze and released them. 'Get some sleep.'

Artemis wanted to argue, but he felt suddenly exhausted. The nausea had softened to merely a thin grey water inside him and the blazing static in his head had fallen to a muffled hum. For now, at least, the white plains of his bed and the broad, soft silence they brought seemed the best answer to an unsolvable problem. Dimly he recalled a time when Butler would have never dared question his decisions like this, let alone all but order him to sleep. Even his parents wouldn't try that any more – not that either of them much cared what his bedtime was.

He undid the robe, handing it to Butler to hang up, then pulled back the heavy goose-down duvet and slid into the heart of the sheets. The nights were getting colder.

Only when Artemis was safely ensconced within the folds of his bedsheets did Butler open the door to leave. 'I'll see you at breakfast. Maybe when you've finished speaking with your father we can go for a ride.'

Artemis smiled, though there was no heart in it. 'I suspect there might not be much time for horse-riding in the coming weeks.'

Butler shrugged. 'Then we'll make time.' He smiled, and for a moment Artemis was ten years old again, believing that his mother would get better, that his father would come back, that fairies might be real and everything would turn out okay. But the moment passed, and Butler shut the door, and then it was just Artemis alone in the heaving black silence of his bedroom.

* * *

Artemis waited in the ballroom (empty and unused since Christmas, filled with death-shrouded tables, chairs, a monstrous grand piano) at the front of the house for his father to approach, his figure a stiff grey-faced sentinel against the slice of glass and sky peering between two half-opened curtains. This lurking did not suit his temperament, but it was necessary if he wanted to head off his father and the twins before they had a chance to run into Angeline; and the waiting, interminable though it was, was the most productive activity he had been able to find for himself.

He had spent hours trying and failing to meditate – usually an easy feat, even in the most stressful of situations – but this morning the cool, still centre of his brain eluded him. Instead, he had slipped Holly's golden medallion out of its usual resting place against the skin below his throat and paddled it between his fingers, back and forth, for over an hour.

He heard the car before he saw it, that familiar guttural engine of their sleek bulletproof Bentley. He needlessly adjusted his tie and strode to the ballroom door, but no sooner had he laid his hand on the cold brass handle before another, equally familiar noise struck him immobile: that of his mother's bedroom door slamming. He traced the sound of rapid clacking footsteps descending the stairs, then passing by a few feet from the antechamber that separated the main hall from the ballroom.

Artemis's hand gripped the brass and felt his skin grow colder as the metal warmed, reluctantly, to his lukewarm touch. His mind dredged up a thick, dripping black tangle of emotions he had left submerged for years: the uncertainty of whether or not the woman in the hall was his mother, if she was someone else, if she knew she had children, if she was in a violent mood.

Outside the Bentley's engine cut and Artemis forced himself to press the handle down and push open the slab-like door with his shoulder. At the other end of the antechamber, framed in the doorway, stood Angeline Fowl.

Her smile had never been warmer.

'Arty dear,' she said, everything about her calm and soft and familiar. Artemis walked up to her in half a daze. 'Did you sleep well? You look awfully pale.' She frowned and tucked an errant lock of hair behind Artemis's ear. 'You need a haircut.'

'I'll have Butler make me an appointment,' Artemis managed, his voice so stiff he wondered he could speak at all.

His mother looked as well as she ever had. If Artemis was given to romantic cliches he might have thought the sun had come out from behind a cloud, but he had lost his naivety a long time ago. In her first illness those spells of happiness far better resembled clouds than sun: they were brief, diaphanous, and the burning illness beyond always pushed through and blinded you.

'Are you sure you're feeling alright?' His mother's voice was so soft. Artemis wanted nothing more than to throw himself into her arms, but such notions were violently cut short when a small, blond-curled boy bowled through the front door and rushed Artemis's knees, whereupon he hung like an iron-gripped koala.

'Artemis, _Artemis_ ,' Beckett sang tunelessly, 'we're back from Eng-er- _land_. We saw Big Ben and the Tower of London and Bucking Place and-'

'Buckingham Palace,' corrected Myles, pushing past both of them without pause. 'A waste of time.'

'And the Thames and lots of other things.' Beckett's small arms tightened around Artemis's knees. 'I'm getting a suit like Dracula.'

'You allowed this?' said Artemis, directing his query to Artemis Sr, who had just made his way over the threshold with a large suitcase.

'It's the only thing he wanted. Myles tried to talk him into something a little more conservative, but you know what Beckett's like when he sets his mind to something.'

'I'm sure you will make a lovely Dracula,' said Angeline, who had swooped up Beckett in a tight embrace. He writhed and giggled as she kissed him, his head lolling. 'You are getting so big, Beckett. I shan't be able to pick you up soon.'

'I'm going to be as big as Butler.'

'I'm sure you will,' said Artemis Sr, laughing and joining his wife and son in an embrace. He ruffled Beckett's hair and kissed his wife's cheek, like two newlyweds, deaf to the world beyond them. Artemis turned to look after Myles, but he had already disappeared into the dark bowels of the manor, presumably to seek out his laboratory. He had not said a word to his mother.

Artemis hung back like an acquaintance waiting to be introduced, hoping for a brief respite in the cooing and giggling and kissing. He cleared his throat politely.

'Father, can I speak with you for a moment?'

'Let me breathe, Arty, I've been travelling for four hours.' He did not take his eyes off Beckett and his wife. His gaze brimmed with such intense love it felt intrusive to look upon it.

Artemis broke away from the group, unsure he was ever a part of it to begin with, and went in search of Myles, though this proved fruitless. He spent a full twenty minutes wandering through the twins' quarters and the libraries in search of his brother, but Myles and Beckett both had a talent for disappearing when they didn't want to be found.

He returned to his own study in the hopes of fitting in some work before his father extricated himself from his wife and youngest child, but his mind refused, again, to cooperate. It was maddening. Every time he looked to his laptop the shrill thrum in his head whirred into life again and when he tried to sort through his papers the nausea burned his throat. He tried to look through the window to clear his head but his eyes kept misfocusing on the glass and all he could make out were grit and smears dirtying a distant blank sky.

Finally, when he thought he might throw up if he spent another moment staring at medical textbooks, he heard a door down the hall click closed and he knew his father had settled himself in his study.

The head of Fowl Industries sat behind a sprawling chestnut desk which held only a rotary phone, a lamp, and two photographs (Angeline, portrait; two twin babies, one with a frozen scowl and the other laughing at a long-forgotten joke).

Artemis paused politely in the doorway and waited for an invitation to take the red velvet seat opposite the desk.

'Arty, please,' Artemis Sr gestured to the chair. 'You don't need an appointment to see me.'

Artemis smiled with practised good humour. There had once been a time that making an appointment was in fact the only way to guarantee seeing his father, but Artemis Sr had long forgotten that.

'How was your trip to London?'

'Hot, crowded, full of tourists, but the twins had fun. Or at least Beckett did. I'm starting to worry about Myles; he never seems to enjoy anything.'

'I was much the same when I was his age. I grew up well enough.'

'Yes,' said Artemis Sr, with a laugh that was not entirely unforced. 'So, Arty, how has the business been in my absence? You haven't sold us out to the Triads?'

'Only a few minor subsidiaries,' Artemis joked, to which his father repeated that same odd laugh. 'Mother and I have been discussing university applications. Mother is still pressing a bachelors, but I thought a fast-track masters would be more befitting my busy schedule. In literature, perhaps.' The lies came easy, but thick, like treacle from his lips. 'For the _social experience_ , if nothing else.'

'That's good to hear. I did worry St Bartleby's might not be best environment for you, but your mother insisted. A lot of rich idiots. Get yourself on a course at Oxford and you'll be much happier.'

Artemis smiled genially. 'Indeed.' He paused. 'I do have something I need to discuss with you.'

'What is it? Need another investment?' Artemis Sr's smile was fixed. He did not know, of course, that Artemis's shadow companies had altogether amassed wealth almost twice that of the Fowl empire, which had stagnated in the past several years. Asking his father for investments was the only way Artemis knew of making the man feel like an active parent.

'I wanted to talk about Mother.'

A cool blank curtain drew around Artemis Sr's expression. 'Oh?'

'She has been rather unwell these past days.'

'Separation anxiety.' Artemis Sr shrugged one pinstripe-suited shoulder. 'She must have missed the twins something terrible.'

Artemis fought to keep his voice even. 'Yesterday she was unable to remember who I was. She hasn't done that since... your previous absence.'

Artemis Sr gave a laugh that almost passed for levity. 'Ah, she had the same problem when you disappeared. I get kidnapped in the Arctic, you scamper off for three years... It's no wonder she gets overtired. The stress must be exhausting.'

'Stress alone should not cause delusions or hallucinations. And even if there is a benign cause, mental strain of such severity should be treated, should it not?'

'She is quite capable of treating her stress herself, through rest and relaxation. She doesn't need you putting any ideas into her head about _hallucinations_.'

'I am describing a symptom she is exhibiting; I am not _putting ideas_ into her head. Indeed, I thought it prudent to speak to you first, since...' Artemis felt guilt suddenly bloom inside him, like a pouch of ink burst in water. He _should_ be talking to his mother about this. It was her illness, not his father's.

 _This is a tactical play, a necessary evil_.

Artemis doubted those words would sound any more convincing if said aloud. 'Because I didn't want to make any rash decisions without your input,' he finished somewhat anticlimactically.

His father's expression was cold, cloaked marble. There was no hostility there, Artemis knew, but he perfectly recognised the deliberate detachment, the careful distance in his father's features. Whatever decision the man was trying to reach, it was not one he wanted to share with his son.

After several long moments of tense silence, Artemis Sr opened and closed his hands diplomatically. 'Upon what grounds do you claim that she was hallucinating?'

Artemis kept his voice slow and measured. 'She said... some things that gave me cause to suspect that she may not always be seeing... reality... exactly how it is.'

'Examples?'

Artemis glanced aside to the tall window. From where he sat he could only see the sky, which was thick with grey, heaving clouds that promised another rain-beaten afternoon. He could project his mother perfectly onto them, tall and sad, her face laced with an old mourning, the kind that had worn itself out with grief and ground down the pain of absence to familiar dullness.

_'I know he's dead. I know it. But sometimes I feel that he's here with us.'_

'Artemis?' His father's patience was waning.

Artemis straightened his tie and cleared his throat, stalling. He wished he had discussed this with Butler before presenting it to his father.

'She believed that I was dead,' he said.

If he had expected his father to show shock or fear or concern, such expectations were instantly dispersed. The man shrugged.

'So what? That's not a hallucination. You _were_ dead.'

'But I'm not dead,' Artemis said with less than his customary grace.

'You disappeared for _three years_ , Arty. God!' For the first time, anger flickered through features that Artemis Sr was now clearly fighting to keep calm. He ran a hand through greying hair. 'She gets tired sometimes. Very tired. Raising three children takes its toll. Sometimes she forgets things. It's no cause for a family panic.'

'How can you just _forget_ that your son is alive?'

'Artemis, we had a funeral!' He was shouting now, though his voice strained erratically to keep itself in check. 'There was a headstone and an empty grave! I didn't want to do that, but she needed closure and it was all I could think to do! As far as anyone knew, you were shot in Taiwan and your body got chopped up in some warehouse! What the hell was I supposed to do? I told her you were dead and she believed it. Everyone did. And then you come back, and you tell her about fairies and magic and other dimensions, and – and you expect her to just accept that? Her son risen like Lazarus by magical creatures!' He passed a hand over his face and swallowed hard, his breathing tight, his hand drumming erratically on his false leg. 'That was very difficult for her, Arty. It's still difficult for her. But she is trying, damn it, and she doesn't need you attacking her for struggling with the _death of her son_ once in a while.'

Artemis swallowed a hundred arguments that were scratching at his throat. His father looked exhausted, much as his mother did from time to time. Part of him wanted very much to believe his father and accept that his mother was completely healthy other than occasional, slight confusions brought on by the stress he had caused. He wished he could believe that. He wanted to close his eyes and believe it with all the faith and childish naivety that had let him believe in fairies and walk into their world. But he was not a child any more.

'I'm back now,' was all he finally said. 'I've been back for three years. Would it be easier if I had stayed gone?'

'Of course not,' his father whispered, and leaned over the table to take his son's hand in his own. 'We are both so happy that you're back. There aren't words for how much we missed you.'

Father and son looked at one another for a long moment while the clock ticked obtrusively in a corner, then Artemis Sr pulled away.

'I best get back to work.'

'Of course.' Artemis stood, re-buttoning his jacket. 'Thank you for speaking with me.' He managed to make his voice sound grateful and warm, but he felt hollow. He had achieved nothing. His mother would not be getting help, and she would not be getting better. All he had managed to do was upset his father.

Outside the study Artemis nearly tripped over the small black-clad figure of Myles, reclined against the wall, his arms folded tightly, a perpetual scowl screwed onto his face.

'You were eavesdropping.'

'So what?'

'Father is worried enough about you. If he knows you're spying on him then he'll stop funding your experiments.'

Myles's scowl tightened. 'I have to find out what's going on in this family somehow. Perhaps I should hack the security feeds like you did.'

Myles Fowl had grown into what the child psychology textbooks all tactfully referred to as a _difficult child_ , much as Artemis had been. Myles was not, however, so fortunate to be an only child and doted on by three parental figures as his elder brother had been. Beckett loved him fiercely and Artemis spent as much time with him as his free time – and patience – allowed, but even at his best Myles was not an easy child to care for: a six-year-old who liked to be read Nietzsche at bedtime.

'If you require information on the inner-workings of our family drama, you can always just ask me, Myles. Much as you would like to think otherwise, I am not your arch-nemesis.'

'Oh, please.' Myles waved a tiny hand in a dismissive gesture he had unconsciously picked up from his elder brother. 'You have even less idea of what's going on than I do.'

'Care to share your conclusions?'

'Not with _you_.' He sulked obviously for a few more seconds, a kind of silent tantrum that Artemis had learned to wait out. Myles's scowl finally dropped a notch and he took a few steps away from the study door, indicating the corridor with his head. Artemis followed silently, going well out of his father's possible earshot. Myles led him down a thin, unused corridor, past a decapitated suit of armour that was gathering dust, and through a door into a room that Artemis had half-forgotten the manor had. Its purpose had been lost long ago and it now served as storage for cardboard boxes and discarded furniture. Myles clambered over a dresser and pulled himself up onto a chair balanced precariously on two boxes, then regarded his brother with large, unreadable eyes.

'What's wrong with mother?'

Artemis leaned against the door and exhaled a long breath. He let his gaze rest on a dusty old globe that had had half of Russia punched out of it. He dimly recalled that Butler had done that, soon after the Major's death.

'I can't say.'

'Why doesn't Father want her to see a doctor?'

'It can be difficult to admit when there might be something wrong with a loved one.'

'That's stupid.' The child pulled a face. 'Why wouldn't you say if you thought there was something wrong with someone? I'd say right away if I thought there was something wrong with you.'

'Much appreciated.'

'Father should take you more seriously.' Myles kicked his legs against the cardboard box beneath him. 'You're not quite as stupid as he is. You're right, anyway. Mother's crazy.'

'That's a little extreme.'

Myles shrugged a tiny shoulder. 'We're all crazy. Father's an ex-criminal philanthropist, you claim to have spent three years in a demon dimension, Mother talks to walls, and my teacher is trying to pawn me off to a special needs school on the grounds that I have antisocial behavioural disorder, which I _don't_. Anyone would be antisocial putting up with my classmates. Beckett is the only normal one around here, and he eats beetles.'

'Butler is fairly well-adjusted.'

Myles scoffed. 'Butler gets paid to follow you around all day, even though he's got millions in his bank accounts, so there must be something wrong with him. You'd have to be mad to put up with you 24 hours a day.'

'Do you not believe I was in a demon dimension?'

Myles considered. 'Well, you're an idiot and you do stupid things all the time, but you're not completely mad, and the multiverse theory is supported by Hawking, so I can give it a little credit.' He paused briefly. 'And Beckett believes you.'

Artemis looked over his baby brother. He had grown sullen, lounging about in an endless teenage sulk that had started seven years too early. He was openly disdainful of their parents in a way that Artemis had never been, but it didn't take a specialisation in psychiatry to see that much of that was from jealousy. Beckett was the favourite twin, through no effort of his own. It was fortunate that Myles loved Beckett as much as he did, otherwise Artemis might have suspected Myles of slipping arsenic into his food.

'Mother said something to me yesterday,' Artemis said delicately.

Myles tilted his head in an exaggerated, mock-interested motion. 'Oh?'

'She thought I was dead and haunting Fowl Manor.'

Myles snorted. 'Can't really blame her for that. She did think you were dead for three years.'

'Perhaps I should never have come back.'

'Don't be a moron.'

'You don't think Mother's health might be in better shape if she didn't have to process the resurrection of her son?'

'Yeah, but Juliet and Butler missed you. Butler especially. He just would _not_ accept you were dead.' Myles groaned. 'It was _such_ a bore going to visit him in Duncade. Those were the most miserable weekends. He didn't even have internet.'

'I could have stayed with him there,' Artemis mused. 'I could have not told my parents. At the time all I thought of was getting home, but... I did make the decision to risk jumping into another dimension without knowing the consequences. I came back because I thought they needed me, but perhaps...' He trailed off, staring at that broken globe. Why had someone not thrown it out?

'Parents don't want child geniuses. I learned that when I was four. At least with you, mother and father still had the novelty of raising a prodigy. I'm just an annoyance.'

'Mother and Father both love you very much, Myles.'

'You're an idiot,' Myles picked at strands of his neat hair. 'Of course they love me, and they love you too. But loving someone doesn't mean that you can't get tired of them, or that they don't annoy you, or that sometimes you wish they weren't around. Loving someone doesn't mean you need them.' Myles frowned. 'Needing someone doesn't mean you love them.'

Artemis had nothing to say to that. He let silence fill the room, broken only by the soft percussion of Myles's feet against the box beneath him. The child's expression was incomprehensible.

'At least you have Beckett,' Artemis finally said.

'You've got Butler,' Myles countered. 'I wish Beckett could shoot people I didn't like.'

'Maybe Butler will teach him how to shoot when he's old enough.'

Myles watched him like a wary crow. 'If you're still around then.'

'Why would we not be around?'

Myles opened his mouth to answer, then promptly shut it and slipped off the chair and fell three feet to the floor, landing clumsily.

'I don't know. Beckett said so.'

'Forgive me if I take your beetle-eating brother's conclusions with a grain of salt.'

Myles's expression somehow became even more impenetrably guarded. 'He's smarter than you think.'

'Is he prescient?'

Myles snorted. 'Oh, please.'

'I've seen stranger things in the past five years than prescient six-year-olds.' Artemis shrugged. 'I don't intend to go anywhere. Tell Beckett he must be mistaken.'

'Tell him yourself.' Myles pulled the door open. 'I'm going to spend time with Mother. Before she, you know, forgets I exist.'

'That's not funny.'

For a brief moment Myles looked exactly as exhausted as Artemis felt. 'No, it isn't.'

And then Myles was gone, and Artemis was left alone. His eyes fell upon the gaping hole in the side of the globe and he held his hand up to it, tracing the edge, pressing his fingertips against the unyielding paper waters that fell into tattered void. He might as well be trying to break through the seabed of the real Arctic ocean for all the progress he would make trying to dent the wooden globe.

Artemis thought of his mother's illness and he thought of the thousands of textbooks and the doctors he would meet and the endless, unfair impossibility of it all, and he looked at his tiny fist and wished that he had the strength to punch through countries.


	3. Swallowed

The night pressed tight and thick around Fowl Manor like stomach walls, but Artemis was still awake. He sat small and straight in bed, his white hands clasped like two small dead birds, his eyes wide and itching red. He had long given up on sleep. Even during the brief interludes between his mother's screaming fits his anxiety would push him incessantly back to wakefulness. He would fall gradually asleep, degree by degree, and then just as he began to slip into unconsciousness his body would jolt him awake, as though afraid he would fall.

When he did sleep he dreamed. He dreamed of crawling through a rabbit warren made of clay, where every dead end held a small grey corpse, neatly folded, and if he opened his mouth to scream then grit and slime poured in. He never woke screaming. Waking up felt like sinking suddenly into quicksand—but then his eyes would be open, and the clock would read some ungodly hour, and he knew it was just another dream.

Tonight there was no break in his mother's shrieking long enough to claw uselessly after rest. Artemis would have liked to go next door and comfort her, but he did not want to risk her not recognising him again. The past few days had been especially bad. The episodes waxed and waned, and Artemis found it best to avoid his mother completely while she was in the midst of one. Besides, his father should be the one comforting her.

Artemis considered, then pulled back the blankets and forced his heavy body to stand. If he couldn’t help his mother, at least he could bring her the man who claimed he could.

Artemis dressed clumsily, his feet missing his socks several times. He hung Holly's coin about his neck and slipped on the fairy communicator ring she had given him. Their weight helped ground him, if only a little.  What he felt went beyond exhaustion. This was something more than that, something deeper, like a brine pool in the ocean depths—a sea within a sea. He caught occasional snatches of sleep in his study—an hour here, an hour there—but it didn’t help. It was like trying to gulp air air by pressing your mouth into the sand.

Artemis didn’t remember leaving his bedroom or descending through the nighttime labyrinth of Fowl Manor. Sleep deprivation swallowed up the interim and suddenly Artemis found himself at the hallway that lead to his father’s study as though no time had passed. Though the passage was lightless, his memory dimly illuminated a red carpet, dark wooden walls, a slim mirror at the end that watched your approach. It was the same hallway he had walked so many times in childhood, although it had seemed larger then. But that was only because he had been smaller. Lately it had grown long again, as if the passage of time had tripped and now he was growing smaller again, the hallway longer. Each time he walked along this path it felt the door had slid down a couple more inches, just that little bit further out of reach.

Artemis paused at the door. The mirror darkly informed him of his grey-circled eyes and the sallow, exhausted sheen to his skin, but he paid it no mind.

Light seeped beneath the door: uneven, quivering. Firelight. Artemis took breath after breath and felt as though nothing was getting into his lungs.

It had been two weeks. Two weeks, and no change.

Artemis knocked. No answer came. A few short years ago he would never have dreamed to open this door without an invitation. Now he didn’t even wait to knock twice, he just pushed it open with his shoulder while his fingers groped uselessly against a handle he was too tired to grasp. He was sick of oak doors. He was sick of a lot of things.

Inside his father’s study Artemis shivered in the sudden warmth of the overfed fireplace. It lit the huge family portrait that hung above the mantel in golden-warm, honey-wet hues that glistened where the paint was smooth and thick. The eight-year-old Artemis depicted within was smiling appropriately, his mother resplendent in lilac and pearls, his father tall and proud and youthful.

Its flesh-and-blood counterpart sat hunched in the stiff embrace of a crimson Queen Anne armchair, his gaze rooted deep in the coals. His collar was loose and his shirt a maze of creases. His prosthetic leg rested against the wall beside him.

Artemis Sr didn’t look up at his son. ‘I didn’t tell you to come in.’ His speech was lazy, slurred. A decanter sat on the table beside him and a nearly empty glass shimmered in his hand as it caught the firelight.

‘You’re drunk.’

‘Always so observant.’ The sarcasm was unfamiliar on his father’s tongue. He had never been fond of subtlety. His choice of address was direct, often blunt, sometimes brutal with those he disliked. He had never quite lost that, despite how he would like to claim the contrary.

‘Why aren’t you with Mother?’

‘She doesn’t need a babysitter.’

‘No, she needs her husband.’Artemis reached forwards, fingers stretching for the glass to take it away. His father yanked his hand away so violently that Artemis recoiled on instinct.

‘You do not tell me what to do, is that clear?’

‘Clear.’ Artemis stayed back as his father refilled his glass and resumed his silent vigil before the fireplace.

‘Are you still here?’

‘I’ve never seen you like this.’

Artemis Sr laughed, sharing a private joke with himself. ‘You’ve got a lot of growing up to do, Arty.’

‘I am well aware of that.’ He felt it now more than ever. ‘You are the adult here and your wife needs you. You need to go upstairs and be with her.’

‘And you need to stop telling me what to do. You’re getting...’ He gestured vaguely with the glass. ‘Too big for your boots.’

Artemis glanced down instinctively and saw for the briefest of moments first his black riding boots, then hooves, and then the fire shifted and they were just black leather loafers. He closed his eyes tightly and opened them again, bright points of lighting bursting and dying before him.

‘Did you ever,’ Artemis Sr began, ‘Think that... maybe if you’d stayed at school instead of playing at Moriarty your mother wouldn’t... Angeline wouldn’t... she wouldn’t be like this?’ He emptied the glass in one clean swallow.

‘Perhaps. And perhaps if I hadn’t done the things I’ve done, you would never have been rescued from the Arctic, and Mother would be even further gone than she is now. That or comatose on sleeping pills.’

Finally, Artemis Sr turned to look at him. He cocked his head slowly, his eyes distrustful: a grey-faced marionette.

‘What the hell did you have to do with my rescue?’

‘I... was responsible for maintaining the interest in your discovery. The Russian police would have forgotten about you long ago had I not...’ Artemis faltered under his father’s gaze. ‘Had I not... kept up publicity.’

Artemis Sr turned his head back to the fire. ‘You lie to me all the time, Arty. I know you do. I don’t know what you get up to, but I know that whatever it is, you’re lying about it. God, how old were you the first time you broke into my bank account? Ten?’

‘Nine.’

‘Bet you still do that, hm? Skim a little off the side for your... whatever it is you get up to.’

For the first time in his life, Artemis felt something like pity, something that smelled faintly of disgust for the man he had held in such high adoration since infancy. The accusation levelled at him was false, but it didn’t matter.

‘ _aurum potestas est_ , yes, Father? Is that not how you raised me?’

‘Jesus. Why couldn’t you have been...’ He shook his head and let the insinuation eat up the room.

‘Normal?’ Artemis supplied. His exhaustion congealed into anger. ‘I apologise, Father. Quite sincerely. If only I could be more like other boys, more _normal_. Indeed, how useful it would have been to you and the Fowl empire if I had been a _normal child_ when you disappeared. How much more adeptly a _normal child_ would have dealt with the hoards of brokers, creditors, crime syndicates, not to mention more than a few borderline psychotic business associates— _your_ business associates—who came knocking at the door while you were incapacitated in the Arctic. Tell me, on what fortune would you build your eco-friendly business had I not been capable of dealing with those people and guarding, cultivating, _regenerating_ your money?’

Artemis Sr said nothing. Artemis had never seen him look older.

‘Did you have any kind of contingency plan, Father? Your life insurance policy would have barely covered funeral costs. Did you consider for one moment what would happen to your family if your Murmansk gamble didn’t pay off? Do you know what Mother was like in your absence?’

Artemis Sr set the glass down with a harsh, sharp thud. ‘You’re getting hysterical.’

‘This is not hysteria, Father, these are facts. Have some more: your wife is ill, the twins haven’t been to school in two weeks, and I...’ Artemis saw his right cufflink was askew. It was plain silver, embossed with a rough horseshoe. He didn't remember fixing them to his shirt when he dressed. He straightened it, the silver cool beneath his fingertips. ‘I cannot continue to clean up after your mistakes.’

The words seemed to wash over his father. Then a frown crept over his brow. ‘Why haven’t the twins been in school? Why isn’t Butler taking them?’

‘You or Mother always take them to school.’

‘And if neither of us can, then he should do it. He’s a butler, that’s his job.’

‘He’s not a nanny.’

‘You dropped out of school entirely when I was gone, I expect.’

‘Naturally.’

‘He should have made you go.’

‘Oh yes, Father. A brilliant suggestion. If there was one thing that would have helped dealing with the business’s financial crisis, your disappearance, and Mother’s illness, it would have been school.’ He feigned a gasp of realisation. ‘If only I’d won a few conkers tournaments in the playground, I could have restored the family fortune!’

His father wasn’t listening. ‘Butler did a poor job with you. He’s, what, fifty? That’s too old for a bodyguard. Where’s Juliet? She was good with the twins. Or we could just replace him. Hire someone else.’

‘You can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because Butler is-’ _He’s all I have. Because he’s family, my oldest friend. Because I’d be dead without him._ ‘Because he’s my Butler, not yours.’ The words felt petulant in his mouth.

Artemis Sr was too drunk to argue the point. He waved a shaking hand. ‘Fine. Your Butler. Do what you like with him.’

 _My Butler._ Artemis realised, with a pang, that his father did not know Butler's first name. He had kept the secret of Butler's name from his parents for years, and yet now of all times it gave him a strange glow.

The memory hit him like dull metal: blood on his hands, his ears ringing, a body trembling, the greatest terror he had ever felt. _‘Artemis, call me — Domovoi.’_

‘How often do Fowls learn the names of their Butlers, before... before they die?’

‘Never. Sometimes. I don’t know.’ Artemis Sr rubbed a hand over his forehead, shining with sweat. ‘God, I need to sober up.’

‘Yes, you do.’

‘I wasn’t asking your opinion. Why are you even awake?’

Artemis looked at his watch, frowned, then looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. Both read five AM.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Go get some sleep. You look terrible.’ He looked at his son properly for the first time. ‘God, Arty. Go to bed. You shouldn’t be up, you shouldn’t be worrying about this. Let me handle it. Everything is going to be fine, I promise.’

‘I know,’ Artemis lied.

‘I love you, Arty. You know that, right? You’re my little boy.’ His eyes shone, and he seemed suddenly, briefly happy. ‘My Arty.’

Artemis tried, albeit weakly, to smile back. 

* * *

 

The morning seethed with frost and mist over the Fowl estate. Lone blackbirds trailed sparse wisps of song through the hedgerows, and a single fox streaked red across the slopes below. Dew drenched the thick grass and glistened around a dismal slab that had been set into the earth to mark a grave.

This stone was much like the others. Dull, imperial lettering carved out an initial, a surname, then the birth and death dates, usually concluding with, ‘He died in service.’ Some had variations on this theme: several died ‘with honour,’ some ‘in the line of duty.’ This particular epigraph read simply, ‘Major L. Butler. 1938 – 2000. He died in service.’ If Artemis had not attended the funeral and known roughly where the grave stood then he would have had difficulty locating it.

The gravestones for the Fowls were much more ornate, all freely overshadowing the flat sunken plates that marked the graves of Butlers, like sunflowers among weeds. If a visitor didn’t look closely enough, they might mistake the Butler graves for paving stones.

‘It is six AM.’ Butler’s voice came from behind him. ‘It is minus five degrees. And you are not even wearing a coat.’

Artemis’s shoulders dropped as a heavy jacket, too big to be his own, was deposited around his shoulders. His eyes stayed fixed on the grave before him, but he drew the jacket close to his chest. He hadn’t realised he was shivering.

‘You are going to be the death of me, Artemis. Do I have to put a bell on you? Do you know what a laughing stock I’d be if my charge died of pneumonia?’

‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.’ Artemis dug his fingers into the sleeves of the jacket and pressed his nose into the collar. It smelt of creamy soap and sweat.

‘What are you doing out here, anyway?’

‘I was looking for my grave. I can’t seem to find it.’

‘What?’ It took Butler a moment to remember. ‘Oh. From Hybras. How did you even know there was one?’

‘Father told me about it a few weeks ago. Where is it?’

Butler extended an arm and pointed out a wholly unremarkable patch of grass. ‘It used to be there. I got rid of it as soon as you came back.’

‘What did it look like?’

‘Artemis-’

‘Tell me.’

Butler sighed and ran a hand over his scalp. The cold ate through the dappled weave of his jumper.

‘White marble. Gold lettering. Not too gaudy.’

‘What was the inscription?’

‘I really don't think-’

‘I deserve to know what it said on my own headstone.’

‘It just read “Beloved son”, followed by some Bible quote.’

‘Which passage? You don’t remember?’

Butler’s eyes briefly flickered shut. ‘I don’t care to. Please stop talking about this. It's morbid.’

‘You must remember something. I don’t think Father will tell me.’ Artemis felt his teeth clench, felt the wind slide under his collar and lick at his skin. ‘How long-’ His voice sounded too high; he coughed. ‘How long did they wait after I disappeared to put up the headstone?’

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t here.’

‘Should we reuse the headstone for my next funeral, I wonder?’

‘You can’t. I destroyed it.’

Artemis sniffed. ‘That seems rather wasteful. Morbid or not, there’s no reason not to be practical about these things. I suppose I ought to design my headstone myself, lest my parents put up something especially gauche the next time they have need to hold a funeral for me. What do you think it should say? I was thinking Tennyson.’

Butler came to stand in front of the boy. His lips were pale and his face taut and carefully blank.

‘Please stop talking about this. I don’t want to think about you dying. I’ve never wanted to think about that. Your parents didn’t have that luxury. They had newborn twins to take care of; they couldn't afford to lock themselves away and grieve. Or maybe I was just too weak to move on.’ His gaze flicked to the distant hills sloping up the other side of the valley. The mists smudged them into lazy grey-green rivers of grass and diaphanous trees. Somewhere a crow let gravel-snatches of sound echo up into the air. ‘I've buried a lot of people, Artemis. I’ve been to a lot of funerals. I’m sick of them. I couldn’t cope with yours.’ He rubbed one huge hand over a furrowed brow, his eyes closed. ‘I had to get rid of the grave, obviously. Couldn’t let your parents see it, not after you used the _mesmer_ on them. I broke up the headstone in the middle of the night, and then I thought I should probably dig up the coffin as well, just in case someone came across it. Plus, your parents had left some of your things in there. They didn't have a body to bury, so they buried some of your personal effects instead. Some compositions, one of your paintings, a photograph. I thought you might want them back.’

Artemis stared at the patch of grass. It looked completely ordinary.

‘Took me a while to dig the coffin out,’ Butler continued. ‘Had to get through the vault first, and that was concrete. Even before I got the vault open I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't tell exactly what. It looked just like every other grave I’ve seen, and when I got it open the coffin looked like any other. I couldn’t figure it out. You’d have understood immediately, if you’d been there. But then you’ve always been smarter than me.

‘You see, I’ve never buried a child. And you were fourteen when you - when you disappeared. So they’d got you an adult’s coffin. And that’s what was wrong with it. I remember standing there, covered in soil, thinking, “Of course Artemis isn't dead, because the coffin is too big. It would look ridiculous.”’ His laugh was soft, uncomfortable. ‘You were fourteen and you were so tiny. You would have needed such a small coffin.’

Artemis swallowed. His throat felt too big under his skin, his tongue heavy and wrong in his mouth. ‘I apologise for bringing it up. I won’t mention it again.’

‘Thank you.’

Far away, the first creeping inches of sunlight were starting to slide over the hills, low and blue and cold. For the first time in weeks, Artemis felt the weight on his chest lift ever so slightly.

He turned to Butler and his smile was almost the same as it once had been: that knowing, sly little grin he’d had since childhood. ‘Let's go riding.’

 

* * *

 

 

The stables’ air was thick with steam and the smells of must and manure, which felt, somehow, cleaner than the delicate potpourri scents that clambered about Fowl manor. Artemis Sr’s hoard of pointer dogs assaulted them with yips and wags, refusing to settle until Butler had dutifully scratched each behind the ear. Angeline’s horse, who had not had any proper exercise for over a fortnight, snorted loudly as if in protest while Butler saddled Rembrandt.

Artemis wandered between the stalls and let the smells and noise envelop him. He held up an open palm to Dido and she thrust her blunt velvet mouth against his skin, expecting food, then snorted in derision at the empty hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Artemis without thinking. ‘I don’t have anything.’

Behind him, Butler laughed to himself. ‘See, you’re talking to them too now.’

Artemis couldn’t quite find the words for a riposte. The horse stared him down with eyes miles-deep and tremendously black. Her breath surged forth in great plumes of steam, her nostrils flared, her coat glistened like dew as the light caught the sweat. Somehow, there was nothing funny about talking to this animal.

_It knows._

A hand cupped his shoulder and Artemis started.

‘What does she know?’ Butler glanced between Artemis and the horse.

‘I - what?’

‘You just said, “It knows.”’

‘I did?’

‘Yes. Are you alright?’

‘I - I’m fine. Yes.’ Dido’s gaze was away now, apparently more interested in the stable floor. ‘I think sleep deprivation is starting to affect me.’

Butler studied him intensely. ‘Are you sure you’re alright to ride?’

‘Yes. I just need some fresh air.’

‘Not something I’d ever think to hear from you.’

‘I do feel better out here. The air in the house feels... thin, somehow.’

Butler frowned down at him. ‘Are you sick?’

‘No. I don’t think so. I’m just tired.’ He mustered his energy and managed a smile. ‘I’ll feel better once we’re moving.’

After Butler led the two horses out of the stables, Artemis stepped over to Rembrandt and grasped the saddle, fixing one foot on the stirrup. In the brief moment in which he waited for Butler’s assistance he felt, for the first time, horribly embarrassed that this was something he couldn’t do himself. Children could mount horses unaided, and yet still he could not. It was more than embarrassment, it was shame. But then those familiar hands were lifting him and he hooked his other leg over the saddle instinctively, and then he was seated. Rembrandt had already started to walk off, but Butler halted him with a tug of the reins.

‘I, ah, I really must learn to do this myself.’

‘It just takes a bit of practice.’ Butler swung up onto Dido’s back in one smooth motion. Butler could make smashing down a steel door look effortless. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘What if one day you’re not here to help me?’ The words sounded light-hearted in his head, but came out heavy and awful.

Butler shrugged one huge shoulder. ‘I’m not going anywhere. You worry too much, Artemis Fowl.’

They rode for a while in a silence that was comfortable and familiar. Fowl Manor slid beneath the horizon and with it went some of Artemis’s anxiety and exhaustion. The hoofbeats sounded evenly against the muffled background of his heartbeat and soon he could almost forget about his mother and his father and all the rest of it. It was just them and the horses and the hills.

They had been walking for almost half an hour when Artemis became aware of a question that had strayed into his head, and before he was able to give it the proper consideration he usually gave his words, it had slipped between his lips.

‘Do you think my father is a good parent?’

He didn’t turn to see Butler’s expression, but he could read the wariness in the pause that followed.

‘I really can’t say,’ Butler said finally. ‘I don’t have a wide frame of reference.’

‘What was your father like?’

Rembrandt briefly halted, hesitant before a fallen branch, then picked over it.

‘You’ve never asked me about my family before.’

‘It never seemed appropriate. My parents never inquired after your family, and I followed suit. You were a servant. It wasn’t the done thing.’

‘I’m still a servant.’

‘But you’re also my friend. Aren’t you?’

If he had not heard it a hundred thousand times, Artemis would not have been able to pick out Butler’s quiet, dry laugh over the wind.

‘Yes, I’m your friend. And speaking as a friend, I think your father has had to deal with some very difficult things in his life. I know he’s not always the most attentive parent, but he does love you very much.’

‘Myles disagrees. At least, I think he does. You know how he likes being needlessly cryptic.’

‘Myles likes to bait you. Don’t pay him any attention. He’ll grow out of it.’

‘What if he doesn’t? Mother and Father don’t give him the attention they should, and he doesn’t have someone like you to take care of him.’

‘He has Beckett.’

‘Beckett is six.’

They turned onto a wider path and Butler drew his horse up next to Artemis so they could ride side by side.

‘Myles will be alright. I don’t think I was necessarily that good an influence on you. I helped you kidnap a fairy, after all.’

‘You did a lot for me. If you hadn’t been there, if it had just been me and Mother, I...’ Artemis adjusted the reins to give himself time to think. ‘I don’t know what would have happened. I thought for so long that if I just got Father back, everything would be alright. And I did get him back, and he told me everything would change, and it didn’t.’ Next to him Dido kicked up a spray of mud, sending thick black flecks cascading over Rembrandt’s legs. ‘Were you close with your father?’

‘I never met him. My mother had me when she was very young. Juliet and I have different fathers.’

‘I suspected. Odd names for siblings: Juliet and Domovoi.’ The name came out queer and rusty. He hadn’t said it aloud in so long. ‘Would you prefer if I called you Domovoi?’

‘You can call me what you like.’

‘But what would you prefer?’

‘I prefer whatever you’re most comfortable with.’

Artemis clicked his tongue. ‘You can be very difficult at times.’

Butler snorted. 'Yes, of the two of us, I am definitely the difficult one. You're the laid back, easy-going one.'

'You're one of the tensest people I've ever known.'

'I get tense over potential assassination attempts, not nicknames.'

'Fair point. Do you find me that difficult?'

'Well, you haven't asked me to help you kidnap anybody or conduct any heists recently, so you're certainly easier to deal with than you used to be. Myles gives me more trouble, really.'

'Myles's psychiatrists seem to think the same things about him that mine thought when I was his age. Some of my them absolutely loathed me. There was one man, Dr Traub, you may remember him, who was absolutely set on diagnosing me with psychopathic narcissism. I found it most amusing. One day he got tired of my jokes and called me a nasty, impudent little creature who would never love nor be loved.' Artemis snorted. 'What a hack.'

‘You never mentioned that before.’

‘If I informed you of every moronic thing my psychiatrists said, we’d never talk about anything else.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Six, maybe seven.’

‘He should have been fired. You can’t talk to a kid like that.’

‘I probably had it coming. You know what I was like at that age.’

‘I do know. You weren’t psychopathic. Just weird. I remember when Mrs Fowl found your spider collection.’ He shuddered. ‘I have never heard anyone scream like that. You were so upset that they’d all got loose that I spent a whole afternoon hunting down as many as I could and putting them back.’

Artemis smiled in spite of himself. ‘I don’t remember that.’ His smile slipped. ‘Mother can’t have been happy.’

‘She got over it.’

‘I don’t think I’ve been a very positive influence in her life.’

‘What?’ Dido snorted as if to echo the shock in Butler’s voice. ‘Of course you’ve been a positive influence. Don’t even think that.’

‘If it wasn’t for me, Opal wouldn’t have... And if I had done a better job looking after her when Father disappeared, then maybe things would be different now. I tend to get people hurt.’

‘You’re the one who defeated Opal, Artemis. You’re the one who bought a wish. You saved her life, your saved your father’s life, and you saved mine.’

‘If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have needed saving.’ A hot flush of guilt and terror shot through him. ‘You’ve died twice because of me. What if the third time we’re not so lucky?’

Butler did not look in the least bit perturbed. ‘Everyone’s luck runs out one day. I’d never trade our time together for a long, healthy life somewhere. And anyway, I wasn’t talking about that. I meant from before.’

‘Before?’

‘Before I was assigned the job here. Before you were born. Life with you saved me from how things used to be.’ He shook his head, his gaze fixed on the horizon. ‘Do you know what my life was like before you came along?’

‘Your military and vigilante career? I always got the impression you enjoyed it. Travelling all over the world, fighting for different causes. It all sounded very romantic.’

‘Not really. I was good at fighting, so I figured I might as well get paid for it. It gave me something to do. A sense of purpose, you know. That was all there was. The fight, the mission, the objective. I did job after job after job. I never took more than a week off, excepting injury. I couldn’t bear staying in one place for too long. I suppose it was a kind of depression. But you live your whole life like that, you don’t realise things could be any other way.’ He shrugged one shoulder, as if none of it mattered to him any more. ‘Then you came along. And things were different.’

‘What about Juliet?’

‘I didn’t even know Juliet existed until our mother died, which was just after you were born. My uncle knew about her, but he said knowing I had a sister wasn’t necessary information, so he didn’t tell me. He thought I might not take the job if I knew I had a little sister on the other side of the world. Fortunately, your parents were accommodating enough to let me bring Juliet to live in the lodge.’

Rembrandt stepped over an errant tree branch, his hooves making soft _shuk_ noises as they pulled free from the mud that Dido pulverised in her wake.

‘I didn’t know. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s alright. What's past is past.’

‘What about the rest of the Butler family? Your cousins? Do you not talk to them?’

‘Never cared to get to know any of them. You and Juliet are the only family I need. If that’s not presumptuous of me to say.’

‘It isn’t. Not in the least.’ Artemis's voice was high and tight, and a knot climbed his throat. ‘You’re family to me.’

‘Madam Ko would not be pleased if she heard you say that.' Butler sighed, heavily but not with sadness. 'I tried not to get attached to you, I really did. But here we are. You’re like a - like a little brother to me.’ They came to the end of the lane before a gate and Butler drew Dido to a halt, then gently grasped Rembrandt’s reins to stop him wandering. He met Artemis’s eyes and there was nothing but sheer brute certainty in his gaze. ‘I feel unbelievably privileged to know you, to have watched you grow up. What’s going on right now, with your parents, it’ll pass. And I’m always here if you need someone to talk to.’

‘Thank you.’ Artemis pursed his lips and breathed in sharply, but tears ran hot and stinging down his cheeks regardless. ‘I apologise, the lack of sleep is... I’m very tired.’

‘It’s alright. You don’t need to apologise.’ Butler reached over and gripped Artemis’s shoulder, his palm huge around the tiny knot of bone. ‘I know things are rough right now, but they’ll get better. It’ll be okay.’

And although he didn’t mean to, Artemis believed him.

 

* * *

 

Angeline Fowl sat alone at the breakfast table. She still wore her long white nightdress, a draft disturbing its sheer folds. Between her thin fingers a cigarette murmured smoke at the ceiling. As far as Artemis knew, she had quit long before he was born.

‘Mother?’

She looked up. ‘Arty.’ Sadness and exhaustion had settled like ash over her features. She stubbed out the cigarette and extended two wan hands towards him. ‘Come give me a hug.’

Artemis crossed the room obediently and wrapped his arms around his mother's neck, feeling her own entwine his waist. No one had hugged him in months. The smell of smoke and sweat and perfume clung delicately to her cool, damp skin.

‘I'm sorry, Arty,’ she said, releasing him and wiping her eye with her thumb. ‘Things haven't been good lately, have they?’

Artemis could not answer that question. He looked to the cigarette. ‘I didn't know you had taken up smoking again.’

‘Hm? Oh.’ She shook her head, her lazy curls quivering. ‘I haven't. I don't remember lighting it. Funny, that. I haven't smoked since...’

‘The day you found out you were pregnant with me,’ Artemis finished. He had heard that story a dozen times. How Angeline had laughed, how she had thrown a packet of cigarettes into the Irish sea, how Timmy and she had danced and laughed under a thousand glittering stars...

‘No. Seven years ago. When they told me it was twins.’ Angeline shook her head again. ‘I smoked a lot when you disappeared in Taiwan, Arty. There was nothing else to do. Just waiting around for news of a body.’ She sucked in a breath. ‘But then I found out I was pregnant again, and, well, that was it. The Fowl Empire needs an heir, doesn’t it? And I thought it might be better. It might be different. Arty was so...’ She bit her lower lip, her eyes large, the sunlight burning through her hair. ‘I thought it would be different. But we got Myles, and it was the same thing all over again.’ She raised another cigarette to her lips and moved to light it—but there was no lighter. Her fingers twitched on air as though to catch the flint, again and again, pointlessly. She didn’t notice. ‘I didn't want to keep them. I hated being pregnant. Everything hurting, all the time. Being ruined from the inside out. They told me it would be beautiful, but it wasn’t. How was I supposed to know better? I was so young and just so happy to be married, Timmy.’ The unlit cigarette fell from her fingers. ‘My dress was like starfire.’

Artemis spoke quietly. ‘I'm not Timmy. I'm Artemis. Your son.’

She frowned, then a smile broke over her face. ‘Of course you are, darling. My little Arty.' Her scarecrow arm hooked him into another hug. ‘I've been so tired lately. I called Dr Hiller. She's a psychiatrist.’

Artemis blinked. ‘A psychiatrist?’

‘She should be here tomorrow. I really must tidy the place up.’

‘Does Father know about this?’

In one sharp motion, Angeline smacked her son’s hand that rested on the table. The pain was insignificant, but Artemis recoiled instinctually.

‘I’m a grown woman, Timmy. I’m thirty-nine. You expect me to sit here and wait for you to deem my health fitting of your attention? Are you sick of my being an embarrassment to you?’

‘Mother...’ Artemis fought to say more, then relented. ‘I apologise.’

Angeline rapped her flawless fingernails on the table. ‘You think you’re so important, don’t you, Timmy? I’m important too. I have children. You know nothing about raising children. All you do is spread disease throughout my family.’

Artemis said nothing. He didn’t know if there was any sense to be found in his mother’s outbursts, and if it was there, he didn’t know if he wanted to find it.

‘I already called the doctor. Now go away. Leave me alone and go exploit some third world workers, or - or go build a factory in a rainforest. Go make money. It’s all you’re good for.’

‘Of course,’ said Artemis, not listening, his mind elsewhere. He didn’t need his father’s permission to do anything. He had been lying to him all his life, why stop now? And on his finger a glittering ring weighed heavy, a ring that wasn’t a ring, and under his shirt a hot golden disc burned against his skin that had come from another world. He didn’t need his father’s medical opinion. All he needed was to place a call.


	4. Circling

Butler had never liked Angeline Fowl. Nor had he harboured any great dislike for her, but he had never been able to admire or trust her the way his charge did. Their qualities were so diametrically opposed that they were incapable of holding conversation for longer than it took to comment on the weather. They lived differently; they breathed differently. And besides, Angeline did not make a habit of befriending her employees, which suited Butler just fine. He remained cordial with Angeline, no more, no less, and she paid him the same courtesy — at least, most of the time.

Many had described Butler as a straightforward man. ‘A man who means what he says,’ as one one military commander long ago had phrased it. Butler did not consider this a point of pride, he simply knew no other way of being. But Angeline was a creature born of different flesh entirely. She was a creature of light and lambency; she flickered like a moth framed against dusk, or slipping, dreamlike memories.

Socially, she glowed. Angeline could flutter her way into any conversation, any heart, at any social gathering she cared to step into. Her body language was superb: a hand tipped with pearlescent nails resting on a man’s arm, her head tilted with the faintest suggestion of coquetry, her smile open-mouthed with pleasure as though exclaiming at some fantastic daintiness. Always there was something of the swan in her movements, which she quite deliberately cultivated with white, cream, lilac, coral, and periwinkle gowns of lace and silk. When Angeline stopped before you the party fell away and you became the most important person in the world, adored and golden — and then she was gone, and somebody else was being blessed, and in a fortnight she would phone and ask you for a £50,000 donation that you were powerless to refuse.

Men would fall in love with Angeline like Autumn leaves, and she would skip through them without notice of what she tread underfoot. She had only ever, she claimed, loved her husband, who had been her stalwart champion these last twenty years. And you would believe her, because it was impossible to disbelieve anything Angeline said.

If you asked Butler if he had ever been in love, he would frown as if he had been asked for directions to a destination he did not know and reply, ‘I don’t really have the time for that sort of thing.’

Curiously, this is the same answer one would receive if the question were posed to Artemis Jr, although his mother might chide him that romantic love was not a concept learned in books or the laboratory.

Butler had observed from afar Angeline’s celestial charms for almost two decades, and he had noted the differences between her interactions with family and those she had with potential contacts and business partners. What troubled him now, more than ever, was how few differences there were. It was his job to read body language; the ability to predict when someone was a threat would save far more lives than accuracy with his Sig Sauer. Angeline’s sincerity eluded him. He did not doubt that she loved her husband and children, but sometimes he doubted if she did not love every person she spoke to whenever it suited her.

He did not voice these concerns to Artemis. He had come close to discussing them with Juliet, once, when she had returned from Mexico for a Christmas holiday a year prior. She had talked with Angeline about how things had been in Mexico and then retreated to the kitchen where Butler was preparing salad.

She entered, face scrunched, and said to Butler, ‘Man, I had forgotten what a vampire she was.’

Butler had paused in chopping tomatoes. ‘A vampire?’

Juliet extracted a bottle of Irish Spring from the fridge and swigged the ice cold water. ‘Yeah, you know. A vampire. She feeds off you.’ By way of illustration she pulled a face that more resembled a cat than Dracula, complete with phantom claws, and after that the subject was dropped.

There were other things about Angeline that Butler knew; things that, he thought, her husband did not. And if he did, Artemis Jr was certainly not aware of them. Certain unanswered questions lingered in the wake of Angeline’s drifting folds of silk, certain wisps of secret mysteries she did not want discovered. Her absent, unmentioned family; her perfect, yet blunted Russian, not the Russian that ought to come from the mouth of a minor princess’s granddaughter; and how she had come to be in the Ivy at eighteen years old and marry an Irish crime lord a year later.

Butler did not question these mysteries. He did not run background checks, he did not make inquiries. If it had been anybody else on the planet — even Artemis Sr, whose storied criminal past Butler had memorised in order to better guard his son — Butler would have done these things. But not Angeline. Her hoard of secrets he left undisturbed, sequestered in some cavern of a past that second by second, year by year, she buried ever deeper beneath the life she lived now.

By some strange coincidence, Butler happened to be mulling over these old thoughts that day when he entered Artemis’s study to find the boy hunched before one of his many laptops and running a hand repeatedly, compulsively, through the lengthening fall of his hair.

‘I can’t find any medical records on her.’ Artemis’s fingers tapped the base of his keyboard like angry flies against glass. ‘Nothing beyond what I created myself. The Fowl computer network has files for me, Myles, Beckett, father — but nothing on mother.’

Butler, who had been bringing Artemis a plate of neat triangular sandwiches for dinner that would no doubt go untouched, set the plate down beside his employer and shrugged a weighty shoulder.

‘Some people like to keep their medical records private.’

‘I even have yours.’ Artemis indicated a folder on the screen labelled _Butler D_ , followed by his birthdate.

‘I guarantee you don’t have all of them.’

Artemis clicked his tongue like an exasperated parent. ‘Butler, what is the point in withholding important medical details from me? What if you got hurt — again — and there was something vital missing from your records?’

‘Trust me, you know everything that you need to.’

‘And no more.’ Artemis rubbed a pale, skin-webbed finger and thumb over his forehead. ‘I am coming to realise that I know far less about those I love than I could have ever thought possible.’

Butler leaned against Artemis’s desk and stared his employer down until the boy looked up and met his gaze. ‘Ask me anything you like,’ he said.

Artemis stared back, and something in his eyes was hopelessly far away, like a sailboat falling inevitably over the horizon, no matter how hard you swam to catch up with it. Finally he twitched his eyebrows and shoulder in a weak approximation of a shrug, dismissing some thought that Butler was not privy to.

‘What’s your favourite colour?’

‘I don’t have a favourite colour.’

‘Mine is blue.’ He frowned. ‘No, it’s not. It used to be, when I was a child. Those things just fall away as you get older, don’t they? Favourite colours, favourite animals. All experiences even out and lose intensity.’

‘That’s part of growing up.’

‘I don’t remember ever feeling like a child. Not really. I only remember being smaller and knowing less. I’m more mature now than I used to be, certainly, but... sometimes I look at father and I think he is less mature now than I was five years ago. And mother, she...’ His gaze, which had drifted away, flicked back to Butler. ‘May I ask you something else?’

‘Go for it.’

‘Do you like my parents?’

In the time it took for the intent to lie to form in Butler’s mind and some intimation of a lie to assemble on his lips, he realised that Artemis had already seen what he was doing. ‘No. Not especially.’

‘Why do you dislike them?’

‘I didn’t say I _dis_ liked them, just that I didn’t like them.’

Artemis clicked his tongue again. ‘Then why you do you not like them?’

‘I don’t see any benefit to discussing this.’

‘But you said I could ask you anything.’ Artemis leaned back in his chair, a smile writhing upon his lips, enjoying the game.

‘Your fault for wasting your question on my favourite colour.’ Artemis tried to out-stare him, but Butler put no effort into engaging. ‘Aside from bringing sandwiches — which I would really appreciate you putting a tiny bit of effort into eating — I came to tell you that Dr Hiller is here.’

‘The psychiatrist?’

‘Yes. She’s with your mother, but she might want to speak with you once she’s finished.’

Artemis stood, his hand entangling his hair again and winding it as if to pull it out at the root. He moved to step towards the door, but Butler blocked his path. Artemis looked up blankly.

‘Sandwiches,’ said Butler, in a tone that would have crumpled lesser men. His voice softened. ‘Please.’

A mirthless smirk scratched across Artemis’s face. With great purpose he lifted a sandwich between a thumb and forefinger held in melodramatic poise, then neatly severed one of its most acute corners. He chewed, swallowed, then spread his hands as though having demonstrated a great skill.

‘Is that it?’

‘If I eat more I’ll throw up,’ Artemis said matter-of-factly, and replaced the sandwich.

Butler again picked up the plate with its three perfect triangles and their fourth, lopsided sibling. The prints of four little teeth bordered its absent corner, where the bread was slightly damp.

‘You’re losing weight.’ Butler said it without judgement or alarm, but with the quiet insistence of someone remarking on the need for an umbrella in the rain.

Artemis worked his hand through his hair, then raked it again. ‘I’m losing a lot of things,’ he muttered, as though not hearing the words he said.

Butler inhaled slowly, focusing his breathing as Madam Ko had taught him and as he had taught Artemis. ‘Can I get you anything else?’

‘No.’ Artemis’s fingers — now bound in black strands that had been torn free — went again to his hairline, but Butler grasped them as though catching a reckless moth and gently pushed them down.

‘You need a haircut.’

‘So you’ve said.’

‘How about you let me cut it for you?’

Artemis’s eyebrow arched itself with a dry amusement that looked out of place above his shadowed eyes. ‘Have you ever cut someone’s hair before?’

‘I do mine.’

‘I’m not sure that look would suit me,’ Artemis mock-pondered, eyes lingering on the familiar shaved scalp. That faraway look darkened his eyes again, like drapes across a violent sky, within which something withdrew, grew distant, like a small animal dying. And then he blinked, and he was Artemis again. He shook the hair free of his hand and picked up the abandoned sandwich, then took two further bites. Grimness curled his lips. ‘I shall see if Dr Hiller is available.’

 

* * *

 

Dr Hiller was of late middle age, grey-faced and straight-backed, and there was a gentle severity to her expression as if she spent her days wrangling unruly children. She waited with hands clasped behind her back before the fireplace, studying the grand family portrait that hung above it.

‘Dr Hiller,’ said Artemis by way of greeting, and she turned to him.

‘Ah, you must be Artemis Fowl Junior,’ she said in clipped Edinburgh tones, and extended a hand for Artemis to shake. She wore an impeccable black skirt suit that Artemis would have guessed to be Valentino with a silver silk kerchief strung tightly around the collar. ‘I saw your paper at the Manchester New Psychologies conference. Most compelling.’

That had been a year ago, although it felt as though an age of dust lay between his present state and that impossibly distant, normal day.

‘Thank you, doctor.’

‘Please, call me Evelyn. Let us sit.’ Without invitation, she took the high-backed armchair that was Artemis Sr’s preferred seat, and folded her legs primly. Artemis sat in the smaller chair adjacent to it. No fire stirred in the grate and the only illumination came from two heavy-shaded lamps, giving the room the disconcerting effect of a museum that had been dimly lit to preserve its crumbling exhibits. In the absence of his father, Artemis felt oddly as though he were haunting the room.

Artemis cleared his throat to reassure himself of his physical solidity. ‘What is my mother’s condition?’

Dr Hiller shrugged a sharp shoulder. ‘It is your mother’s wish that details of her illness remain private, at least for the time being. I can share with you what medication I have placed her on, so that you can ensure she takes what’s needed. Beyond that I must leave it to Angeline to decide what is shared with you.’

Artemis nodded, irritated but acquiescent. ‘I understand.’

Dr Hiller smiled thinly. ‘Please try to refrain from reverse engineering a diagnosis from what I’ve prescribed her. I sympathise with your frustration, but respecting your mother’s wishes is paramount.’

‘I will try to restrain myself.’ Artemis succeeded in forcing a brief smile. He felt comforted by Dr Hiller’s firm demeanour. There was something of the governess in her tone that made him long, briefly, for a kind of childhood and a kind of mother he had never had.

‘I am prescribing her three medications for now, and we shall see how she progresses on those-’

The door opened. Artemis Sr entered without hesitation, dressed in argyle and cream slacks whose grass-smudged cuffs suggested recent golfing.

‘Apologies for my tardiness, Ms Hiller. Please, don’t let me interrupt.’

Dr Hiller looked him over briefly. ‘Mr Fowl,’ she said in greeting, then continued outlining the names of drugs and their frequency of dosage. Artemis silently committed the list to memory, all the while watching his father askance, neither of them acknowledging the other.

‘Excellent, excellent.’ Artemis Sr clapped his hands together as Dr Hiller concluded, then extended one in greeting. ‘So good to have you here, Ms Hiller. How is my wife faring?’

Dr Hiller shook the offered hand, her smile thin as black ice. ‘That is for you and her to discuss together.’

‘Oh come now, doctor, let’s speak frankly. I understand she has a touch of the nerves. I keep saying a stiff drink should cure that, but I hear modern medicine no longer agrees with that sort of medication.’ He laughed once, loudly, and Dr Hiller paused weightily before continuing.

‘Indeed. I’m afraid I cannot discuss further details of her condition with you. If you would like me to go over the medications I have prescribed for her again, then-’

Artemis Sr clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘Arty, why don’t you run along and let the doctor and I chat, eh?’

Artemis forced himself to perform the very unnatural feat of holding his tongue.

‘The absence of your son would not allow me to breach doctor-patient confidentiality, Mr Fowl. Do you want to hear the medications?’

‘Come now, Ms Hiller. I am her husband. I have a right to know these things.’

‘I cannot budge on this issue, Mr Fowl. Her confidentiality is a matter of ethics and legality.’

‘No, this is a matter of _family_ , and you are a guest in my house. I may need to consult second opinions; those of other, more experienced specialists. Now, I know you and my wife have had a nice little chat and I’m sure it’s done her the world of good, but I need to know your diagnosis if I am to get her the treatment she needs.’ He dragged out the word _diagnosis_ as if pronouncing it to a small child. ‘Come along, now.’

‘There is nothing more for us to discuss.’ She rose, giving a hand to Artemis who stood and shook it.

‘Thank you for travelling so far out of your way,’ said Artemis.

‘It was no problem.’ She turned to the door when Artemis Sr stood, his arms folded, expression one of stunned affrontery. ‘Excuse me,’ Dr Hiller said, with such force that Artemis Sr stepped aside without seeming to mean to, and she escorted herself out of the study.

‘What a cold woman,’ Artemis Sr announced to no one in particular. ‘No regard for family.’ He clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘It’s a difficult business, Arty, maintaining a balance between your professional life and your personal life, and many people can’t handle it.’ He took broad strides to his usual chair and sat in it purposefully, rubbing the arms, reestablishing territory. ‘One day that’s a struggle you’ll have to join. Business and family. Family must always come first, but how can one provide for one’s family without nurturing one’s business?’ He paused, awaiting a response.

Artemis let the pause roll on for a few seconds longer than was strictly necessary. ‘You’ll need to clarify your definitions.’

‘These are universal concepts, Arty.’ Artemis Sr unscrewed the crystal decanter at his side and poured out two neat whiskeys. ‘Surely you must have some input.’ He offered one glass to his son.

‘Mother doesn’t like me to drink.’

‘What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.’

‘That’s an odd sentiment to take at a time like this.’

Artemis Sr’s expression calcified. He set the spare drink down and breathed out slowly, eyes drawn to the ashy dark of the fireplace, his fingers rubbing smears into the clear whiskey glass.

‘I’m trying, Arty. It’s difficult, but I’m trying. I know I haven’t always been good to this family, good to you. Good to Angeline. I cannot tell you how ashamed I am of the man I was. But that’s all changed. Everything is better now. I got better.’ He smiled, and the smile was genuine, hopeful, sincere.

‘You did get better,’ said Artemis, letting the stress fall on _you_. His father did not seem to notice. Artemis then stood slowly, unwinding his spine. ‘If you’ll excuse me, father, I’m going to retire.’

His father glanced at his watch. ‘It’s only eight-thirty.’

Artemis paused at the door. ‘I’m very tired,’ he said, then retreated into the black throat of the corridor. The silence in the house was immense. He could have been the only living soul there.

The journey to his bedroom took an impossibly long time, and by the time he was settled in the bedsheets he found he wasn’t tired at all.

 

* * *

 

Artemis walked the corridor to his father’s study. With every step the ceiling grazed his head more insistently, sinking, pressing him into the red carpet below. He was too tall to take this path, and so he dropped to his knees to continue at a crawl. But soon the ceiling dipped further, and the walls drew together as though recoiling from something, and Artemis was forced to his stomach. He pushed further, further still, and the door to his father’s study was nearly there, so nearly, but his chest was squeezed between ceiling and floor and he couldn’t move. He pushed backwards, but behind him the manor wall pressed against his feet and into him, and his hands were trapped, and then the smell of death filled him and his last thought was that things would be so much easier for everyone once he was swallowed and buried deep in a nameless grave in the manor halls...

Artemis woke. The violent beat of his heart set his motionless body trembling, and all around him his bedsheets sunk into the mold of his skin with the burning damp of his own sweat. His breath came in tiny shallow gasps, like a rabbit bleeding out in a snare. He measured out the great depth of the ceiling, cresting high above him, and then looked to his left and right to reassure himself of the breadth of his bedroom walls. The curtains shifted uneasily in the draught. His clock read three thirty two AM.

Artemis dug himself free from the sheets and took several slow, deep breaths, then drank from the glass of cold water at his bed as though it were air and he were drowning. Beyond the window the sky was gross with moonlight, but starless. The clouds were spread thick and clotted across the sky and Artemis wondered if anyone else in the manor was awake, or if it was just him and the static sky, if time could have stopped around him and left him there, alone in the bloated air, forever.

And then the window blew open, and a fairy dropped in.

Artemis felt no surprise. He let a tired smile creep over his face. ‘Hello, Holly.’

The fairy removed a mirrored helmet. Holly’s eyes were bright, her skin shiny with sweat and silver in the dim light, her hair buzzed almost to the scalp.

She looked Artemis over. ‘You look awful.’

Artemis’s smile lingered. ‘It’s good to see you too.’

‘I mean it, Arty, you look like death. Are you sick?’

‘No, not sick, per se. I do have a touch of insomnia, but I don’t think your magic can do much to help that.’

Holly stepped up onto Artemis’s bed and sat, cross-legged, at the end, where the moonlight engulfed her face. She appeared unaged from the day Artemis had first seen her, five years ago, under the same moonlight, the two of them then mortal enemies. She existed the same now as she did then: the same size, the same shape. Artemis felt conscious of his long limbs, the gangle and squareness to his jaw, the sparse stubble grazing his chin. He had grown, and she had not.

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Holly. ‘The _mesmer_ is good for short-term sleep aid, but I could whip you up a general feel-good calming spell. That should promote restful sleep for a few weeks at least.’

Artemis straightened the blankets as he considered, suddenly aware that he was in his pyjamas. Custom Fox Flannel pyjamas, yes, but pyjamas nonetheless.

‘As strange as it may sound, I don’t actually want my sleep problems cured. They’re a symptom, and their presence reminds me that something needs resolving.’

‘Seems a pointless way of inflicting unnecessary pain on yourself, if you ask me.’

‘Sometimes it’s important to feel pain, to remind us of what we’re fighting.’

‘Yes, and sometimes pain impairs you to the point that can’t do your job properly, and then some poor pixie gets her foot shot off because you were too macho to admit you needed a medi-pac for the hole in your trigger finger that you’re trying to pretend isn’t there, even though the whole Recon team can see the damn thing.’

Artemis blinked. ‘What?’

‘Sorry. Long day at work.’ She ran a hand over her head, the bristles hissing like sand beneath her fingers. ‘I gather then there’s another reason you called me than to chat about your sleep problems.’

‘Yes.’ Artemis interlaced his fingers tightly and concentrated on keeping his voice even. ‘It’s mother. Her mental illness has returned.’ Holly said nothing, waiting for him to continue. ‘I don’t know what’s causing it. Her symptoms would be consistent with a number of delusional disorders if it wasn’t for the fact that she’s apparently been completely healthy for the past six years — save for the business with Opal. At least, as far as I know.’ He ran a hand through his own hair, unconsciously mimicking Holly in his anxiety, and felt the strangeness of how long it took for his fingers to break free. It fell almost to his neck. ‘Could Opal’s interference have triggered this? Or could your spell six — ah, _nine_ — years ago delayed an illness that was already present?’

Holly’s mismatched eyes were large and dark in the cool light. She spoke slowly. ‘I don’t know, Arty. I’m sorry. Mental illness and magic... it’s a difficult area. I can ask some doctors for you, but we’re not experts on human illnesses.’

‘Can’t you do a spell to try to cure her? Like you did before?’

‘I could, but... if it came back once then it’ll come back again. It might make it more difficult to diagnose if I further meddle with her emotional state.’

‘What if it was physical damage — a neurological ailment. Could you cure it?’

Holly sighed with great heaviness. ‘I don’t know, Arty. Brain damage is very different to mending cuts and bruises. When a finger gets cut off, even you mudmen have a decent chance at reattaching it. Fingers aren’t complicated. Brains, though...’ She pulled a face. ‘If I messed something up I could leave her a vegetable. And the chance of me messing something up is, well, pretty high. I’m a soldier, not a brain surgeon.’ She smiled weakly. ‘That’s your gig.’

‘Is there anyone who could do it? What about N°1?’

‘Maybe. I just don’t know. If it’s physical and you know exactly what it is, then there’s a chance, but the risk could be great. I’ll ask around, see what I can find out, but... just don’t get your hopes up, okay? This is a branch of medicine where we’ve got a lot of ground left to cover.’

Artemis sank back and let the cresting softness of his pillows eat up the space around him. His last resort dimmed and shrank before his eyes, the final star, receding into itself as the darkness tightened around it.

‘Thank you anyway, for coming,’ Artemis said absently. He looked back to Holly and, briefly, let himself forget about it all. For a moment he could be what he’d never been: a teenager hanging out with his best friend. Just for a moment. ‘You look the same as you did the day we met.’

‘You don’t. You’ve changed so much even since the last time I saw you.’ Holly extended a probing finger to the longest of Artemis’s four chin hairs. ‘These are new.’

Artemis ran a hand over his chin. ‘Not new, I’ve simply grown lax in plucking them.’

‘Ah, I see. Yeah, I get this really long black one right here-’ She thrust her chin at him. ‘It’s gross. Sometimes I leave it there, because I feel I shouldn’t care about such a tiny thing, but I _do_ , and I’m pretty sure it’s considered an unattractive feature but, hey, maybe I don’t want to be changing my appearance to appear attractive to people, you know?’

‘I understand,’ said Artemis, who did not understand at all. ‘Are you seeing anyone?’

‘Seeing?’

Artemis shifted his shoulders in a delicate shrug. ‘Are you romantically involved with anyone?’

‘Oh.’ Holly widened her eyes and splayed a hand under her chin. ‘No idea. I did have a date a couple of weeks ago, but...’ She mimicked Artemis’s fey shrug. ‘No dice. How about you?’

‘Not as such.’

‘Eh, you’re still young. You’re basically an infant in elf years. Don’t stress about it.’

‘It’s not something that often troubles me. I’ve been thinking about my parents a lot lately, and sometimes I wonder if they’re truly happy together. They’ve always seemed so wrapped up in each other that I never questioned it. They were like school-children. Perhaps that kind of infatuation isn’t a healthy way to be.’

‘You think they ought to love each other less?’ Holly cocked her head and raised dark eyebrows.

‘Not exactly. But there are different kinds of love, some less stable than others.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, I’m hardly an expert on the subject.’

‘Very true.’ Holly stood and jumped off the bed, cracking her neck to the side and readying her wings.

‘You’re leaving?’

‘Yeah, I have an appointment. Sorry. I’d blow it off, but-’

Artemis waved his hand. ‘You don’t need to explain. I’m grateful you came.’

‘No problem. I’ll ask around, see what I can find out about your mother’s illness. There might be some obscure cure I don’t know about. Don’t get your hopes up, but I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thank you,’ Artemis said, and his voice came out in a whisper. ‘For everything.’

Holly smiled at him, the sky cool and calm and dark around her, the moonlight skimming her face like steel. And then she was gone.


End file.
